


For You Have Seen Your Golden Wings

by Snowgrouse



Category: Original Work, Thief of Bagdad (1940), كتاب ألف ليلة وليلة | Kitaab 'alf layla wa-layla | One Thousand and One Nights
Genre: Adorkable, Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Fingering, Anal Play, Anal Sex, Anal Sex (female receiving), Androgynous male character, Bisexual Male Character, Cunnilingus, Dark Het, Dirty Talk, Erotica, F/M, Fellatio, Feminist Themes, First Time, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Ghost Lover, Heroine/Villain, Heterosexual Anal Sex (female receiving), Historical, Historical Accuracy, Historical Inaccuracy, Historical Romance, Invisibility, Islam, Loss of Virginity, Magic, Magic-Users, Marriage, Medieval Medicine, Middle Ages, Middle East, Muslim Character(s), Older Man/Younger Woman, Oral Sex, Perfume, Period Attitudes Towards Sexuality and Gender, Poetic, Prostate Milking, Rituals, Romance, Rough Oral Sex, Shameless Smut, Spiritual, Supernatural romance, Surrendered Male Privilege, Telepathic Sex, Telepathy, Tenderness, The Golden Age of Islam, The Thousand And One Nights - Freeform, Undressing, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, Wedding Fluff, Wedding Night, Wedding Rituals, Weddings, can be read as a standalone/original fic, costume porn, delayed gratification, dirty old man, heterosexual anal sex, middle eastern mythology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-09
Updated: 2016-11-13
Packaged: 2018-08-28 21:23:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 33,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8463427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snowgrouse/pseuds/Snowgrouse
Summary: He, her spirit, her sorcerer now whispered to her of everything that was denied to her and everything that she yearned for with all her heart: namely, worlds and experiences beyond the walls and the latticed screens of the harem.

  It was nothing more and nothing less than freedom itself that now hovered sweetly about her, as if the great wings of the Simurgh about to crown an emperor with the divine halo of kings, to invest in him power over the entire earthly sphere. And it was then that she realised, with a tightening in her chest that there, in the shadows, reflected in this ghostly man, her very own majesty stood, with a power that terrified her and raised the hair on her arms, made a shiver pass through her entire being. Knowledge itself was he who now looked down upon her with expectation and mirth and a surely-lewd smile she couldn't see, his spirit-form gliding past her.

  Life, Life itself rushing and bubbling and gushing forth a river of wine, sparkling and rippling with a passion deep and scarlet, his rich ripeness now stood there beside her, offered: himself a lush bowlful for her to nourish herself with, sate herself with, intoxicate herself with.





	1. Chapter 1

***

Oh soul, you worry too much.  
You have seen your own strength.  
You have seen your own beauty.  
You have seen your golden wings.  
Of anything less, why do you worry?

\--Rumi

***

She has a lover, but she does not know his face.  
She has a lover, but she does not know his name.  
She has a lover, but she knows not whence he came.

Early this spring, she had first seen him--or rather, had _not_ seen him, for he had come to her in a shape fleshless, completely invisible, but a whisper upon the wind.

And the most astonishing thing was that she had not been afraid of him at all, as if she had known him all her life. He was a strange man, yet she had immediately felt familiar and at ease with him, like the male cousins she'd used to play with before they were taken from the harem to be made men. She could always predict his thoughts, too, as if they were of the same mind: she would always sense when he was about to arrive, always know where she would next find him. Scattered petals here, muddy footprints there, and in that tree over there the birds twittering nervously: always, something would announce her djinni's arrival.

And he had not, at first, appeared dangerous: with kind words, with a melody of gentle laughter had he first approached her upon the breeze; a touch firm but chaste upon her hand, asking her to keep him, a lonely spirit, company in her garden. 

For--and this is what he told her--he had sensed that she was lonely, too, and wanting in friendship: he had seen how weary she had been of her dull handmaidens, how often she had retreated to the library, the menagerie or the prayer-room to avoid talking to them; yes, he had marked all those times she had gone off riding and hunting instead.

And today, he is there to ease her loneliness once more, a soft voice dancing upon the leaves.

"Yassamin, my Yassamin. Come. Do not run away. Or, if you must, run away with me," he now laughs, like brother chasing sister in the grass, blossoms falling off the trees as he follows her deeper into the garden.

She was about to take her noonday rest underneath one of the chestnut trees, near to the coolness of her pond: her safe place, her private place from which she had banished her maids, just so she could be completely alone.

But the damned ghost, the blasted djinn, the cursed ghoul will not leave her alone, will not give her rest until she has acknowledged him: there, again the voice comes, a little breathless, now, like a mischievous faun peeking from behind the chestnut tree. 

"Tell me the truth, princess: are you not soul-sick? Weary? Would you not give anything for an _adventure?_ "

"You insult me, djinni," she tells him, haughty, guarded, shocked that anyone should address her with such boldness. But do they not say djinn do not have any conception of good manners? "But you also speak the truth," she admits, for soul-sick, heart-sick, sick to her very being she was, that was true enough. In fact, it was her frustration, her infuriation that now made her return his blunt forwardness in kind. 

"Well, then," her spirit says, his voice now clearer, a voice pleasant, perhaps a little feminine in its lilt, but distinctly that of a courtier refined. "I promise to you I can keep you better company than tittering noblewomen or squawking parrots--although that's not difficult," he says with a touch of wicked amusement to his voice--but as soon as he has said that, he hesitates. "No... I must promise you something better, something befitting a princess's worth. How about a magical, flying horse? With one of its wings that of Imagination, the other Intelligence? Surely, with such a steed beneath us, I might perhaps carry you further away than an ordinary horse ever could--into the realms of Philosophy, that is."

"What?" she laughs incredulously, having expected an offer of a slightly different sort. "You are a madman," she murmurs as she sits upon her rug beside the pond, but she cannot help but be amused. This is something entirely new to her, something entirely different, something perhaps even dangerous--and therefore, she finds the idea immediately attractive to her. Something in his voice, in its catlike, feminine purr had attracted her, something playful and experienced and knowledgeable, a voice that hinted of entire new worlds he could reveal to her if she but let him.

Adventure, he has promised her, and philosophy, but surely, lurking behind all that were motives more fleshly, more amorous? For she was not a fool, and frankly, _expected_ to be lusted after, adored, pursued--her father would not have locked her up had he truly not meant it about her beauty being the sort that could topple empires.

"Come to seduce me with knowledge, then, have you?" she asks him. "I must admit it's a novel idea, a satyr posing in a philosopher's robes. At least you did not choose to feign piety, pretending to be an ascetic when you were not."

He but laughs, the liberated laughter of a courtesan, and within this harlot-laughter she senses an understanding of her own boldness, of what she has just--without meaning to--implied with her words. Not just the hysterical vision of a satyr's prick tenting a sage's robes, but--

Has she just, by accident, told him that yes, she _could_ be seduced with knowledge?

At that, she grows pale, a little terrified. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. I am not used to conversing with men," she says and gazes at her toes.

His voice is almost fatherly in its tenderness as it soothes her with a kind, understanding laugh that implies he has not taken it too seriously, and perhaps that is a touch upon her back, a gentle hand of reassurance between her shoulderblades. 

Yet it is with a voice serious and pious indeed with which he finally speaks to her, solemn and sincere. 

"I but ask your permission to become your companion for a while, my lady. Nothing more than that for the time being, for we do not know each other yet--but I _am_ asking you to give me a chance to change that," he says, and now his voice lowers itself into a purr, a rumble she feels deep in her hips the way she would feel the purr of her pet tiger through her entire body when resting against him. "I but ask, for the next forty days, to become a part of your life, to share in the things you share, to exchange my thought with your thought, so that we might see if we could not become friends."

The wind rustles in the trees and brings to her nostrils a curl of perfume, of fine musk and rich oudh and precious ambergris, as if the scents of a lord and lady combined. It is a perfume she has never known before, made of substances only kings and queens could afford, yet now mixed in a fashion strange, queer: it has to be his. 

When she does not answer, her ghost speaks again, with urgent need and demand. "My lady, I but ask of you: will you have me, for the next forty days, as your companion?"

And in his voice she can find such astonishing, true loneliness that it stings her heart. For does she not know all about loneliness? And is she not, this very moment, offered its end?

 _What do you give to someone who has everything?_ her father had at times bemoaned, having so pampered her, so drowned her in gifts. Well, this was that _something_ \--he, her spirit now breathed to her of everything that was denied to her and everything that she yearned for with all her heart: namely, worlds and experiences beyond the walls and the latticed screens of the harem.

It was nothing more and nothing less than _freedom itself_ that now hovered sweetly about her, as if the great wings of the Simurgh about to crown an emperor with the divine halo of kings, to invest in him power over the entire earthly sphere. And it was then that she realised, with a tightening in her chest that there, in the shadows, reflected in this ghostly man, _her very own majesty stood,_ with a power that terrified her and raised the hair on her arms, made a shiver pass through her entire being. Knowledge itself was he who now looked down upon her, with expectation and mirth and a surely-lewd smile she couldn't see, his spirit-form gliding past her to stand by her upon the rug, but waiting for her permission to sit down.

Life, Life itself rushing and bubbling and gushing forth a river of wine, sparkling and rippling with a passion deep and scarlet, his rich ripeness now standing there beside her, offered; himself a lush bowlful for her to nourish herself with, sate herself with, intoxicate herself with.

Yet he _subjugated_ and _mastered_ this passion and this power of his, something she had never seen a man do before, and this perplexes her: yet even more, it arouses her, stirs in her a new, warrior boldness altogether masculine. And that is the precise moment upon which she realises that their roles have now been reversed, and that they kept on being rotated, that he kept vaulting from the role male into that of the female and back again, as easily and as merrily as an acrobat.

To think of it: Life itself, Passion itself, Knowledge itself had come to her door in anticipation of a feast Dionysian, orgiastic--yet now _asks for her permission_ to step inside! But how? _How could a woman ever take a man?_ she thinks to herself, feverish, sure she is going mad. _Does a man not but walk in and conquer, take what's his?_ If he could steal into her garden the way he'd done, why had he not swept her off her feet yet, carried her away, ravished her? 

Yet there he stands, a temptation intellectual greater than any temptation she has ever felt in the flesh, a seductor made of but mind, of but spirit. Like a painted, perfumed harlot lounging at the brothel door, he had made himself attractive to her by the jewels of his knowledge draped about the curves of his cleverness, had approached her with bold, daring words of freedom and then dropped his handkerchief, waiting for her to pick it up as a sign of passion's contract sealed.

Yet even in his offering of himself to her, his promise of yielding his charms to her, he was possessed of more virility and strength and force than she had ever known in the few men of her acquaintance. He might play the seductress now, but she knows his silence and his stillness for those of a panther gathering its limbs underneath itself just before it pounces its prey. _Everything about him was ravishing her this very moment,_ claiming her with the power he was now giving into her hands; from the jug of his liberty he was pouring and pouring and pouring, only expecting her to say when.

"Yes," she says, and this sound comes from the lips of an altogether new Yassamin, a Yassamin intoxicated, even if she had never tasted of the forbidden drink in her life. But surely nothing could feel as intoxicating as this--the sound of him letting out a breath he had been holding for God knows how long, a breath tremulous, heavy, ending in a little laughter glad, so much like that of a boy's--oh, but he _fascinates_ her.

She can no longer remain still. She gathers her over-skirts about her legs with the customary modesty befitting a princess, but this time her hands hesitate a little, this newfound boldness in her springing up to meet his with too much eagerness to be modest at all. And she examines this feeling in herself and can scarce believe it, this never having happened to her before. Was she now experiencing the thrill of all those bad manners they'd warned her against? The vile cheapnesses she should never lower herself to exhibit, the characteristics best left to courtesans instead of princesses-- _coquetry?_ A terrible, _terrific_ freedom of spirit in his presence that the poets would call _wanton?_

And despite her well-guarded virtue, despite her chaste upbringing, despite her carefully observed purdah--or exactly because of them--she had accepted him. Indeed, what harm could befall her from merely conversing with, walking with a man of spirit? (And even as she thinks this, she recognises it for the logic of the woman about to fall, but cares little.) 

No, no; uncaring, careless, _wanton_ she goes on.

She even laughs at him, jests, a little cruel (for is that not what a coquette does?), tells him that she would, in fact, prefer this arrangement of fleshlessness: many a boasting prince has she already rejected as suitor because of their being _too much_ of the flesh, made of but hard muscle and sinew and brawn. If he, her new companion, _promised_ to talk of matters other than war and of conquest, she says, if he swore to talk not only of himself and his riches, but conversed with her of hearts and of the human soul instead, then gladly would she accept him as her companion--nay, friend.

"I think we will get along most splendidly, my lady," he tells her, a panther's weight shifting beside her upon the grass, and she can hear the smile upon his invisible lips. "For they call me womanly in my interest in the matters of the soul over those of kingdoms and conquests, unmanly in that I would rather care for my loved ones than raze or slay. But it is not that I am not brave, or lack a body male in the land I have sent my spirit from," he says pointedly, as if he had gleaned her thoughts of his shifting sex and wished to reassure her that somewhere, he still possessed a prick, still possessed the passions of a man, perhaps even seeking to threaten her with them a little.

Perhaps her clumsy, virginal mockery had stung him more than she'd thought it would.

"I never doubted that," she says, seeking from the air the place where his eyes might be, a little abashed. "No--I am glad, for those qualities of loving kindness you describe... those are, to me, _human,_ not male or female; but while most men kill love and care in themselves, even male birds can be observed caring for their young. Conversely, it is the she-lion that hunts and kills while the so-called king of the beasts but lazes away. Should it not follow on from that that a human being, with a human's greater intelligence, should be capable of both nurturing and slaying? This is what I have been trying to tell them--" she waves her hand in the direction of the palace, indicating not only her maids or her father or her suitors but the entire world outside, "but you--you--" she blinks. "You are a man extraordinary, strange."

Now it is his turn to sound abashed, at the precise time a gentleman would turn self-deprecating. "It's rather that I have always believed in the old maxim of the ink of the scholar being more valuable than the blood of a martyr. And oceans of ink have I spilled in copying the works of the great philosophers, my back have I broken in carrying the books whose knowledge carried me here to you tonight."

"You are a sorcerer," she murmured, "an alchemist?"

With the dexterity of an engineer, he flicks a little flat stone across the still waters of the pond, watching the ripples for a long while, speaking to her only once they've stilled. "Where I come from, they have called me both a sage and a fool, so I shall let you yourself decide which one I am, once you get to know me better." And now his voice drops into a softer register, the longing melancholy only the voice of a ghost can possess. "But I would know you, too, my lady Yassamin. For it was your beauty that first summoned me here, like that of a jewel hidden inside of a mountain, but I soon saw you were more than just beautiful. I know I am bold and brash in asking this of a lady, perhaps a brigand to so demand it of you, but humour me: the sage in me always hungers for knowledge of hidden things, unusual things, things that stand out as you do, a beacon among your sisters."

He shifts upon the grass and she can feel the air moving about her; he is so close to her that were he there in the flesh, she knows she would now feel his body heat, feel his breath upon her cheek. But there is only the musk and the oudh and the ambergris; only the lilting voice soft, feline, feminine.

"Yes, my lady: I am calling you a beacon, a light that has drawn a weary traveller to what he senses, hopes, feels is a kindly shore, perhaps even a land of new beginnings: for now, I would know this flame that so ardently blazes inside of this jewel that I have discovered, the soul-glow that gives your beauty its lighthouse radiance. In short, I would _know_ you, Yassamin of Basra."

She gazes at him, at this man she cannot see, marvels at him. She has never been complimented on anything except those times she had succeeded in following the traditional manners of a lady: if anything, her mother and her nurses had scolded her for being stubborn, even impious. It had always been her beauty she had softened people's hearts with, won them over with, her tears with which she had melted even her father's tyranny; her beauty was what every suitor of hers had been after, her beauty the only thing anyone outside the palace knows of her.

Yassamin of Basra, her beauty like that of the sun and the moon; Yassamin of Basra, she whom her father guards more jealously than his toys; yet nobody had ever peeked inside the true Yassamin's heart-lantern, wondered what a princess might carry in it.

 _I fear the lantern of my heart may be blackened with soot,_ she thinks, suddenly lost, full of despair. _And not the divine radiance you are hoping to find._ For has her father not always said she has Babylonian eyes? Surely she is not good, rather wicked--

He clasps her hand with his as if he has heard her thoughts; his touch is not hot or cold, but his squeeze is firm and kind.

"Tell me of yourself, Yassamin of Basra."

She does.


	2. Chapter 2

From that day on, he visits her every day; what magics he accomplishes this by, what distances he has to traverse to get to her, she does not know. And when she asks him these things, his voice grows pained--she wonders if his body, wherever it lies, is not in pain, too--and he always reminds her of how little time they have, and how he would rather discuss matters pleasanter with her.

She sets within herself a resolve to find out eventually, but in his way, he is right: she, too, comes to see him to escape from her pain, and wishes not to linger in it; therefore she does not press the matter for now, so as not to cause him more pain.

And in return for what must be massive exertions on his behalf, she makes sure to steal at least an hour to spend with him each day, even if the one hour is never enough. Therefore, she lies to the women of the harem to get two, feigns illness to barter a few more, goes gladly without sleep if she and her ghost have been given no choice but to fulfill their engagements at night.

On certain days, he takes liberties, outrageous liberties with the entire city of Basra so that none shall disturb them for the entire day: for it seems to her as if he has enspelled the entire palace, drawn over it a veil of euphoric, languid, heavy-limbed torpor as if that brought on by the poppy. Her handmaidens doze happily upon their cushions, their books and embroideries fallen to the floor before them; her eunuchs sway and nod and fall asleep upright, held up only by the spears they are still clutching in their dark hands. Not a babe cries in the harem, not a horse neighs in the stables; somewhere, even her father must be spirited away by dream-chariots of gold.

And perhaps this sweet opium-dream has now consumed her, too: for even if she should be shocked, outraged, terrified at the extent of her ghost's magical powers, she finds herself but grateful, happy, glad. The days upon which she, a royal who hardly enjoys any privacy--or true intimacy--in her life has her beloved all to herself are sweeter to her than the end of Ramadan: for is she not breaking a fast of the soul each time he draws near? Therefore, she cannot hate him for it; rather, she feels that if this is a crime, it is a crime committed in the name of all that is good, and gladly would she be his accomplice in it.

He had told her he was not a conqueror, but what is this if not a mighty conquest, the conquest worthiest of all--that of Love? One of pure bliss that harms none, exactly what the Sufis speak of when they call God the ravisher of hearts, the lover who sweeps all into the bosom of his mercy, all? And she thinks of their discussion of care, of wisdom, of a mother's nurturing, and wonders if this conquest is not the very _opposite_ of war: for it is as if a mother had lulled a child to sleep, pressed from the babe all fears with a soft kiss upon its brow.

"I wish all days were like these," she whispers as she looks out from her pavilion in eager expectation, the garden now made as peaceful as Paradise; "I wish that the entire world were made like this, for all time."

This is her earnest prayer.

And there, in the morning sunlight-- _as_ the sunlight itself, she fancies--he arrives to greet her, filling her heart with light as they walk through the morning's brightness of green and gold. And in the heat of the noon, it is the dark and cool seclusion of her quarters that they withdraw to; there, he sits with her, exchanging his thought with her thought long into the night. And in the palace far vaster than that of the Sultan's--the palace that is her imagination--does he journey with her and dream with her, take his flights of Pegasus fancy with her.

So he gladdens her heart with his presence, this man invisible, even when he does not speak a word: already they pray together as commoners do with their spouses, and her very soul-self is sated, saturated with peace as she feels him performing the prostrations with her. 

Likewise, when he excuses himself briefly to feed himself in his home far away, so is she nourished by the smell of turmeric, lime and saffron upon him as he returns that she forgets to eat: he has to gently remind her to partake of her own plateful right there in front of her.

She makes to ask him if this is how he feels for her, too; if her happiness has become his. But while she still hesitates, fearing she would sound selfish asking him that, he rolls up a ball of rice with his fingers, daubs it in sauce and lifts it to her lips.

"Come, I like to see you eat," he says, deftly wiping the corner of her mouth as she does, her heart fluttering so from her surprise that she nearly chokes on the rice. "The colour upon your cheeks--" he laughs. "You know, I could swear it was good for _my_ circulation to see you in such good blood."

Is he an old man, then, to imply he has poor circulation? Is this why he does not show himself to her, fearing she would find him ugly, withered? She doubts she could ever find him ugly and withered; his wisdom and the beauty of his spirit would never allow even the plainest of faces to look truly ugly. 

This, and his words sound like those of a doctor. She seems to recall him telling her he was a doctor of medicine, among other things, which must mean he has to be in his thirties at least; such studies take a long time. 

"I will take your word for it," she says diplomatically. "Yet I wish I could see for myself, one day," she sighs. "Is empirical evidence not everything for a scientist?"

"That day will come, soon enough," he murmurs and kisses her fingertips, sauce and all, daring a little suck; she shrieks from the way it tickles, yanking back her hand. But more than anything, she now laughs in hysterical disbelief from how hard his kiss has just made her cunny tighten, so hard she had nearly fallen over her plate.

"Will I survive it?" she asks him, out of breath, her hair in her eyes, her bosom heaving; and the moment she says this, and from the further stirring his laughter gives to her womb, she knows she does not mean this as a joke at all.

He but keeps on laughing.

***

This man is strange, the strangest of the strange, but at least by now she knows him to be a prince, a man of great learning and oh, a gentleman, a gentle gentleman. 

Therefore, she thinks as they say their farewells that night, perhaps she has a chance of surviving his love after all.

Yet the moment he takes his leave, she slouches there in her bed, exasperated. For even if they might have just discussed each and every topic under the lunar sphere, all things from humble minerals to God's miracles, he has never given her his name, even a clue as to his true identity. Why, he has never given her even a pet name to call him by, not beyond 'ghost,' beyond 'sorcerer,' beyond 'djinni'; he has never told her his place of birth, the name of his tribe, his kin, even he knows very well these must be known of a suitor, to judge whether he has the means to keep her as befits her worth.

And indeed, she knows him for a suitor even if he hasn't so much as broached the subject in words; she would not put it past him to have done this deliberately, all the more to stir her desire to a boiling point. Again, his overly polite manners--coupled with these outrageous, miniature ravishments--frustrate her to the point of _furia._

And then come the doubts, the disbelief in what she has just witnessed, distrust in the spectre she has conversed with for hours on end; the fear and the terror of her perhaps having gone mad. Mad. Yet simultaneously, her terrors' trembling fingers are laced by those of the Almighty, firm and strong, reminding her of the importance of Faith, of that which forms the very heart of Islam: the soul's trusting submission to God's Wisdom and His Will. In an instant, she is flooded with every Quranic instance she recalls of God giving his people over and over again the same message: _We told them and we shewed them Our signs, yet they turned away from Us and did not listen, stubbornly refused to see._ And theirs is hellfire--

Yet on the other side of these heavenly exhortations, again the cries of _Madwoman! Mad!_ arise, the flames of insanity roaring up to confront her until she is, from all six directions, surrounded by hellfire.

"Yassamin, believe! Faith, woman, faith!" she moans out loud to herself, crying out into her pillow at night, another voice echoing hers, it seems. (Is this voice God's? Or her beloved's? And would a mystic not conflate the two, tell her they are the one and the same?)

But then this voice disappears as she hears the eunuchs at the door shifting upon their booted feet--they must think her to be praying, she laughs to herself, a little hysterical.

 _Have faith, Yassamin,_ she tells herself and bunches her sheets in her fists, draws another deep breath to steady herself. Yes, it is the strangest of things, to have a lover invisible, but is God not unfolding great miracles unto mankind through his Creation every day? Have not the prophets and the saints experienced things far queerer? Surely there is nothing inherently evil to a whisper disembodied upon the wind, a hand ghostly upon hers, a lover formless but gentlemanly in his advances, kind?

At the beginning, when she had first sensed his presence in her garden, she had of course prayed and chastised herself, clasped her protective bronze amulet tight against her chest. She had thought this man one of the djinn out to play tricks on her, or worse: the shadow of Iblis himself, sent to plunge her mind into a darkness from whence it would never return. For if she took this lover of hers for a spirit of goodness, if she chose to devote herself to him as a wife should ( _Oh, as if I hadn't arrived there already!_ she laments) and he turned out to be everything but--some heathen demon, ghoul, Satan instead... Would that not constitute idolatry, the one sin God did not forgive or forget?

 _My very soul is forfeit!_ she thinks. _It is now being weighed, being taken to the marketplace to be bought and sold,_ she despairs.

And as the next day, her lover does not arrive, driving her to further uncertainty, hysteria, she knows she must find out the truth for herself, once and for all.

Thus, that night after the sunset prayers, she spreads out a pristine white tablecloth and arranges upon it in a pattern seven herbs, seven fruits, seven perfumes; seven powders, seven pieces of jewellery, seven flowers she lays out upon the cloth in their appointed places, all in front of a large mirror. At last, she lights seven candles around the mirror, and it is before this display that she sits, prays and fasts until morning.

 _But what's this?_

_Oh._

She had fallen asleep for but a few moments, she swears, had not left this room she had closed with seven locks and seven keys. But sleep is the cleverest of thieves, and while she had slept, he had let in the divine visitor she had been waiting for, the one she had been calling to in her prayers. 

For there they are, the signs all women pray for when conducting the tablecloth-rite: the marks left by Gabriel's wingtip upon the platefuls of salt and powdered rice, of flour wheaten. In perfect, beautifully calligraphied Arabic, the words speak to her crisp and clear:

_Fear not, girl-child!_  
_For We have sent him to you_  
_So that through him you might know_  
_Our Beauty, Our Mercy and Our Might._

And this makes her swell with gratitude, until she realises the message had been too vague--or was she now ungrateful, even blaspheming? For she has to admit she would have preferred for the words to have been clearer concerning her greatest hope, fear. 

"But you said nothing of Love!" she cries out into the morning light, looking around herself in despair, her hair and veil dishevelled. "Of marriage," she murmurs.

But it is then that a gust of wind blows droplets of musk, leaves of basil and petals of rose onto the mirror, so that when she glances upon her reflection again, they cling there and form the pattern by which--or so she has heard poets tell--a true lover claims his beloved with his lips. 

For there the signs lie, as carefully arranged as her ritual items on the tablecloth, kissing specific parts of her face. The basil--the plant of vitality and of memory--upon her forehead between the brows, exhorting her to _remember, remember;_ a chaste daub of musk upon her chin flooding her with its euphoric fragrance and making her swoon with a shiver most _un_ chaste; and last but not least, the boldest, most audacious of ravishers, right there upon the very centre of the mirror through which God speaks: a lush, full, succulent rose petal now sealing her lips with its scarlet kiss.

And it is not the chuckle of Gabriel that now leaves the room purring, feline, feminine.


	3. Chapter 3

For that entire day, Yassamin excuses herself and locks herself up in the smallest, most Spartan of her bedrooms: she tells her maids and her eunuchs that she wishes to pray and sleep, and that upon pain of death, she must not be disturbed.

Of course, _he_ is there to disturb her, stealing in with a laugh now wickeder, lewder, a gait prouder, bolder, freer; his breath swirls hot upon her neck before she has even closed the door. 

He says nothing, but all day in dreams and visions--even mid-prayer!--he hovers over her, disturbs her, perturbs her; oh, how with his hints and his promises he tosses her and he turns her.

Yet he never truly takes advantage of her, never performs indecent acts upon her person even during her prostrations, even those brief hours she sleeps sprawled and exposed upon her bed. Even when she--oh, perhaps she merely _happened_ to turn just so that the split of her shalwars showed a little too much of her, perhaps her legs just naturally opened that way, with no wanton intent behind it whatsoever.

Yet there's but the weight of his body sitting there upon the edge of the bed, a sense of being calmly watched, a type of breathing that in a man of flesh denotes a smile upon his face.

This insults her. 

Finally, she stops pretending to sleep, turns around instead and confronts him.

"Who are you to come to me so, laughing like a satyr yet only kissing my feet and my hand? Who are you to perfume me with adult anticipation, only to tuck me into bed a babe? If this is a test, then what do you want of me? Proof of my vice, by suffocating me in your virtue?"

Virtue like cotton wool pressed soft and yet asphyxiating about her, like they keep cotton in a greased tinderbox for kindling, and now he was striking at the core of her, the core of a noblewoman's strength as hard as iron, iron to his flint, striking sparks from her--

She arches off the bed and moans, and it was all very well that her shalwars were in such disarray, for presently they would have stained from a morning's worth of dew.

"Stop!"

"I am not doing anything, my child," a purring laugh.

"And that's exactly the problem! In the name of God, show yourself, prove to me you are true!"

"Or what?" A hand, a ghostly hand curious upon the laces of her drawers, making her arch off the bed once more.

"Or be banished forever, and leave me be!" she cries.

 _Swish, swish,_ the bow undone, the legs of the shalwars now fully parted, the weight upon the bed settling between her thighs.

"And what is this truth you speak of, my child? What is it that you want me to prove?"

But she cannot speak for her tension, all of her sleep deprivation, all of her hunger making her light-headed. But more dizzying is that scratch she now feels--yes, that must be a moustache--upon the bareness of her mound, and she falls stiff upon the bed and bursts into tears.

"Mercy. I cannot go on like this. Another second of this teasing and you will no longer have a Yassamin on your hands, but a madwoman--or a corpse!" she gasps through her phlegm and her tears, for her heart is pounding so that surely it will burst. "I was told of beauty and of mercy," she stammers as she wipes her nose with her sleeve. "Before you drove the angel out with your sorceries, your lecheries. Is it that you are a cripple, that you think I would be repulsed by you?" she accuses him. "Is it that--"

But then his lips take hers a rose in bloom: lush, full and succulent. And he takes her sobs into his mouth as he laces his fingers with hers, just as the Heavenly Father had done, uncaring of her phlegm or her tears. His weight solidifies on top of her and in his mouth she can taste basil, and from his hair his musk assaults her nostrils, stronger than ever before, sending a hot rush of blood to her hips. So violently does her sex tighten, so furiously do her thighs come to embrace his waist that she does not even open her eyes yet, even if she knows him to be real, now, there: but for a moment longer, she savours the memory of her lover the ghost. 

_Lest he be deformed, lest he be beastly, lest he be old._

He pulls back from the kiss, and he _is_ old: not ancient, however, only a man of mature years, somewhere between forty and fifty. His hair has receded far onto the top of his head, black and silver as it falls down to his shoulders in waves; yet his features are beautiful and even, the peak of his hair only emphasising his high and intelligent forehead. His is a face long and thin but bold, with high cheekbones, a mouth sensuous and red and gleaming, framed by a thin moustache; his eyes a shocking pale blue, the most beautiful blue she has ever seen, framed by eyelashes so long and so black that his eyes seem a woman's, or a big cat's. Exactly the things she had associated with him before, _feline, feminine--_

\--and from what now presses against her groin through his silks, far from feminine, it's clear he is not infirm either. It seems she'd been right to call him a satyr: in fact, what she can tell of his proportions terrifies her a little, and her body stiffens in anticipation of pain. 

He but kisses her fingers still laced in his and brings her hand to his heart; never before has she heard his voice so soft, so high, never so like a woman's, now that it speaks to her through a mouth for the first time. 

"There, my lady. The truth, laid bare before your eyes, and--" he undoes his jacket and pulls her hand inside, slipping it in through the opening of his shirt. "And my heart, laid in your hand."

She shakes her head; she is seeing double for her tears, but nothing she now sees displeases her: never has she seen anyone with eyes so blue, not even upon slave girls Circassian or Norse or Rús.

"You know, it had been easier to imagine a man with ordinary eyes," she laughs a little nervously, sniffling and shaking her head; "not heavens."

But at that, he bursts into a laughter somewhat nervous himself; he clasps her head in both hands and gifts her with a kiss, but just before his mouth takes hers, his eyes become less heavenlike in their narrowing from lust and mirth. And again she thinks of panthers, lions, tigers as she gazes at him between kisses; she fancies a family resemblance not only in his eyes, but also in the way his moustache frames his mouth and nose. And even if his nose is delicate and beautiful--again something she has rarely seen on a Persian or an Arab--the unusual shape he has groomed his moustache into recalls the broadening noses of big cats.

"What are you thinking of, my sweet?" he asks.

She traces his moustache. "If this is deliberate. That you would look even more like a cat, to go with the gait and the meaow. For that is what I have called you in my head, when you refused to give me a name."

"A cat?" he chuckles, nuzzling her face.

"A panther!" she rolls her eyes.

"Would you _like_ to call me a panther?"

She slaps his chest. "You are this close to ravishing me. It would be polite of you to tell me your name."

"Do ravishers tell women their na--"

At that, she slaps his chest again. "Stop it."

"Already she chastises me as befits my worth," he murmurs, and his laughter is glad; she catches it from his chest into hers and swoons, light-headed as if her soul were lifted into his eyes, soaring into their skies.

"Tell me," she says.

"Jaffar."

Not a name uncommon, having belonged to a great and wise imam; she feels for it in her mind, in her mouth, makes room for it in her existence. "Jaffar." This is the name she is to call him by; this is the name she is to sigh when they are apart; this is the name she shall soon be moaning in delight. 

"I never understood why I should be a wellspring or a brook," he says, a little reluctant. "You are not the only one to have called me a panther; therefore perhaps it was about time I changed my name to that. To mark the beginning of my new life."

"Your new life?"

"After marrying you, of course," he says and pulls back to lie beside her, cradling her against his chest. "If you will have me."

And at that, she realises their situation--she, lying tangled here with her sex bare against a man unlawful to her. Should they find them here, she would be stoned to death, and he, too--

He raises his eyebrow, flicks up his hand, and there is a clattering, rustling noise as the eunuchs collapse and begin to snore. "There."

She laughs incredulously and shakes her head. "Are you a mind-reader?"

"Only a good reader of faces. It's not difficult to tell when a woman is terrified for her virtue," he says and glances down at them, smiling. "Anyone would have come to the same conclusion as I."

"But not everyone could do--" she nods towards the door, "that. Will you just keep on doing that every time?"

He kisses her hand. "Well, I hope it will not have to be for long. Today is, by my reckoning, the thirty-ninth day of our companionship. And I believe I just proposed to you, my lady, but did not hear an answer yet."

She bites her lip and stares at the door. If she were to give herself to him now, no one would know, she is sure. "Perhaps I like the idea of living in sin with you... for a little while," she murmurs. "I don't know. I've never tried it."

"You did not answer my question," he says, and his grip on her hand is now firmer, and when she turns to look into his eyes, she thinks she can spy such a despair in them that it shocks her. Whenever his voice had shown even the tiniest hints of anguish or grief, it had hurt her, but now that it is accompanied by a real, living face, and those sky-eyes of his now grow shadowed from his frown--

She feels ashamed of herself and casts down her eyes. "Now I have been the wanton, playing games with hearts. I apologise." She looks into his eyes and takes his hand, kissing it in turn. "My answer is yes," she says, searching his eyes, her heart stumbling as she sees them light up with a spark that now casts all shadows aside, turning their blue once more a zenith-bright. "It would have been a 'yes' after the very first day you came to me, had you had the courage to ask," she whispers.

"Your beauty makes cowards out of panthers," he says, with a wry smile. "Or perhaps it is that I am like the he-lion indeed, weak-willed."

"Nonsense," she says and presses her forehead against his. "I have waited so long for you. Would you..." she closes her eyes. "Would you make love to me?"

He sighs into her cheek, a sigh tremulous, his entire body trembling from his joy as he holds her tight against himself. "There are ways of making love, of lovers sating each other that do not involve deflowerment--as I am sure you already know from your father's books," he hastens to add. "That way, we could have that little sin you so desire, yet you would still go to your wedding chamber a virgin," he murmurs.

She pulls back from his embrace, not sure what to think. "Do you think me wicked?" she asks, her voice thick with shame; she cannot even bear to look into his eyes. "I'm sorry. I have behaved like a harlot, I--"

But it is at that that he picks up her chin and nuzzles her face. "Not at all. Only that I know how important things like these are to women, and merely sought a compromise. Believe you me, if I let my prick do as it willed," he says and nudges her hip with it, "already you would have been ravished and buggered and irrumated a thousand times over!" he laughs, relishing her shock at his vulgarity.

"Oh, God!" she cries with a laugh, casting her eyes down: yet between her legs, her cunny tightens and tightens convulsively as she imagines it, being taken in every orifice--and what's worse, herself loving every moment of it. "Of you, I would believe it, too!" she mumbles.

"There, you see?" he asks her, cackling, his eyes so wide his entire irises show, and he is smiling with such happiness she can see his teeth are crooked. It is the twisted grin of a satyr indeed, and perhaps that's why he had not shared a smile with her before; perhaps that, along with his receding hairline, was another reason why he had not shown her his face.

Soon, he closes his mouth indeed, realising she is staring.

"No, don't stop smiling," she says. 

"What will you give me in exchange for a full smile?" he mumbles with his mouth in a ridiculous, exaggerated pout, a wicked glint in his eye. "A breast?"

She glances down at herself--she had been ready for bed, and is only wearing a shirt and shalwars. "I would have to expose both breasts."

He pretends to consider. "For that, I, too, will strip down to my waist," he suggests. "And smile. That fair enough for you?"

"Fair," she says, and already she is pulling her shirt over her head.

When she has struggled out of its sleeves, she finds him already half-naked: he seems to have kicked off his slippers as well, so that now both of them are wearing but shalwars. And he is twiddling his toes, grinning at her widely, leaning his head on his hand; he even rocks his hips a little, offering to her that--that _thing_ that seems a priapic monstrosity as it now tents his blue silks. 

"Come closer," he says, reaching out his hand; gentle, he waits until she is ready to move closer to him before he lays his hand upon her shoulder. 

And oh, its heat--the heat of both his hands as he sits up and tenderly brushes her hair aside, both of them now kneeling face to face. 

"You are beautiful," he says, his eyes drunk; "and I hope you will not think it banal of me to say that. Every woman deserves to hear it, but you... believe in me when I say I have never known a woman as beautiful."

Her voice wavers. "Have you known many, then?" There is no reason he wouldn't have. She can tell he is a man of wealth, a courtier; he would be able to afford a new slave girl each week.

He tilts his head and clasps her shoulders. "Not as many as you perhaps think. But enough to recognise exceptional beauty when I see it," he says and lays his right hand between her breasts, over her heart. "Beauty internal as well as external. Never have I seen them come together in the same woman so; in fact, my child, you _frustrate_ me in that I now have eyes for no other," he says with a slight touch of sarcasm to his voice. "The trouble with beautiful women is that often they are left to fend for themselves with but their beauty, and their minds and souls are never allowed to develop," he says. "And thus, you're left with but a beautiful shell."

"They tried that with me, too, but I loved my books too much," she says. "My father always used to say a man did not want a woman for conversation. _What would a woman do with knowledge?_ he said. If she had a husband to please and children to raise."

He claps his hands over her buttocks and laughs. "She would capture the heart of a sorcerer and a pard, that's what!" he kisses onto her lips. "Come, what further proof do you want of my love for you? For I am in the mood to prove myself."

"Then prove to me what you said about those ways of lovemaking that do not involve ordinary... coitus," she says.

He pretends to be shocked, his eyes flying wide. "Buggery and irrumation?"

She groans and rolls her eyes once more. "You are impossible. I thought it was something gentler you meant."

"No, no; I apologise," he says and finally, cups her breasts in his hands, clasping his long fingers over them and squeezing them tenderly, sighing against her lips in delight. "I will show you all about them, if you can only reassure me that you will not be disappointed if I leave you intact. For I would, firstly, save something for the wedding night, and secondly, I would that our first night together was completely without pain and discomfort, a night devoted to but studying each other's bodies and learning what brings the other delight. That way, I will already know how to stir you and to warm you on the wedding night, so as to make the conjugal act less painful."

"You are a strange man," she says, blunt, in awe of him; she is too drunk from his caresses to care. For it is as if there are lines of fire going straight from her breasts into her womb, the heat now uncurling there making her rock restlessly in his arms. "Strange."

"Do you think me unmanly?" he frowns.

She shakes her head. "That you would think of my pleasure so much. All the love manuals spoke of but ways in which a woman should pleasure a man," she murmurs. "None ever spoke of the opposite; barely even mentioned the fact that women could feel pain."

He takes her hand to the drawstring at his waist. "I have given too many women pain with this fellow to be blind to it," he murmurs against her lips, now beginning to cover her face in kisses. "That is why I want it to be different for you and I," he says, and as she finally closes her hand around his prick, she thinks she can hear him choking back tears, hiccoughing a little. "My Yassamin, my Yassamin," he moans into her shoulder and hugs her tight, rutting into her hand; "I would not wish for him to hurt you."

"Him?" she asks, absent-minded: she is too consumed with awe to even mock him for this, too busy marvelling at the softness of his skin here, a softness akin to that of her own inner labia, yet over muscle as hard as--well. The only tactile reference to her, she realises, is the firm, silken musculature of horses. 

"What's the matter?" he laughs. "Don't you think of yours as having a mind of its own?"

"It's so hot!" she blurts, forgetting what they were even talking about.

"Come, let's get you better acquainted," he says and pulls off his drawers; in silent fairness, she, too, undresses completely until they are lying face to face once more, she still gently caressing his prick. 

"Now, do you see the reason for my concern?" he asks, a little embarrassed. "You were right to call me a satyr."

She tries not to stare, but it is difficult; she weighs him in her hands, measures him as she pleasures him--or at least applies caresses she thinks must be pleasurable to him. He is right; she thinks of how on earth that's ever going to fit inside of her, if even a pickle had hurt her too much to masturbate with. But is the female pelvis not built to accommodate more than that? 

"I am sure I will get used to him in time," she says, now laughing a little nervously as she looks him in the eye, forcing herself to tear her eyes off his cock. "It's not as big as a baby, for a start."

His eyes twinkle with gladness. "Already she thinks of children," he murmurs. "Careful, or you will give this old man a heart attack from sheer happiness."

"But does this feel good?" she asks, now with the curiosity of the scholar as she slides down on the bed a little, so as to reach him better. "You must tell me if I am doing something wrong."

"It feels absolutely heavenly," he grins and stretches, sighing in delight as he surrenders himself into her hands. "When you slide your hand over the head gently, like that, making a little cup of it before you pull back. Where on earth did you learn that?"

She beams with pride. "Ah, now that was in a manual written by a man who had observed the habits of Christians and Norsemen. He said that was the way unbelievers masturbate, by pulling the foreskin back and forth over the head. When a Norseman had asked him how a Muslim man does it, do you know what his reply was? 'We have women and boys for that!'"

He bursts into laughter and kisses her head. "And he was right! But, my love, I am neglecting you. Would you let me look at you in turn? Don't worry about him," he says and rocks his hips, "he's waited for thirty-nine days; he can wait a few moments longer."

She lies down on her back so that he can examine her, but something in her--the harlot who had just lain there completely exposed!--is overcome with a sudden bashfulness, and instinctively, she covers her sex with her hand.

He but slips between her legs and nuzzles her hand with his lips. "We'll do it together, then," he says gently. "A kiss for each finger. What do you say?" he asks and plants a chaste, soft kiss on her little finger.

She bites her lip and lifts her little finger, and oh, the way he laughs between her legs, his panther-rumbles vibrating into her thighs and her hips! 

"That's my girl. Another?" he says and but blows on her hand, nuzzles it, inhales the scent of her cunny in adoration; she cries out at the sight of his pleasure at her scent, so honest and so perverse, animal. His sharp, black lashes flutter down to his cheeks as he relishes her like a prince sampling a rich perfume; his mouth is lewd as he wets his lips with his tongue, a gleaming red before he has even tasted of her. 

He kisses her ring finger, and thus, she yields it; by the time he has made it to the last finger, the one covering her slit, she is so wet she has dripped down to her anus, her cunny clenching and clenching so that her hips lift off the bed at the mere touch of his breath. 

As he kisses that last finger and she lets her hand fall lax, she cries out as she brushes her swollen clitoris; but at that, he takes both hands and pins them down with violence, a violence wonderful, that of the ravisher she had sought.

"There. No escaping from me now," he leers, and his mouth is disgusting with its jagged teeth and its gleaming wet tongue and lips; disgusting and her cunny pulses over and over, her hips lifting up to seek his vile, terrible, yearned-for touch. If he does not kiss her now, she will die, she is sure of it; she will pass out from all the blood in her body having packed into her hips, her cunny so swollen it's twice its usual size, and dizzily, she worries whether he will find it a grotesque sight. 

Again, he closes his eyes, draws in a deep breath, his throat bobbing, his nostrils flaring wide; when he opens his eyes, they are like those of some heathen demon, and his jagged teeth and his tongue come down, his mouth opening to devour her alive--

She expected to cry out, but the pleasure of his mouth upon her cunny is so incredible she cannot even vocalise the sensation; now it is her turn to hiccough, sob, gasp. She jerks upon the bed, her knees clutching and unclutching his head as he flicks his tongue across her slit, then begins to flicker it at the very top of it, like his tongue was some quickly slithering beast with a life of its own. It's awful, it's horrible, it's _wonderful;_ she doesn't know where to put her legs, her feet, murmuring apologies as she pats at his back with her soles, her toenails then dragging loudly against the sheets as she tosses there. 

But he takes his hands from her wrists and uses them to pin down her hips, with the same ruthless determination she had so adored in him earlier. "Hold still, so I can have my feast!" he smirks at her, half his face now _gleaming_ from her; the air feels so cool upon her cunny, the skin of it already rubbed tender from his moustache and his stubble that if he goes on further--

"You're going to kill me!"

"But a little death, my sweet!" he says, ignores her cry and sets out to devour her once again. 

And it truly _is_ a devouring: for a moment, he does not even focus on pleasuring her, only upon the act of eating her--yes, _eating_ as he stretches his jaw wide and closes his mouth around the entirety of her cunny, as if he could take all of it into his mouth if he but tried. And there, he sucks upon her like a ripe fruit, her aching, pulsing, red and hot and swollen flesh captured between his lips and his teeth; he sucks and slurps her taste from her folds, revolting and she _adores_ him. But then she can think no more as he returns his mouth to her clitoris, and now instead of just flicking it, he begins a sucking motion: she can feel teeth, and for a moment she is terrified that he will bite her, but no, no; he keeps on sucking and her clitoris has never pulsed this way, has never swollen this way. Is this how men feel with the prick, each time? Her blood is boiling, desperate to surge out of her, all of this blood and heat and heaviness trapped inside of her hips, and she is screaming into the ceiling.

"Please, please, please!" she cries.

"Command me," he commands _her,_ his mouth glistening, all of him out of breath; his sides heave between her legs, his pupils wide from love-madness. "How do you give yourself release?" he asks, and that, too, comes out a command, an order beautiful, snapped and precise; he tosses sweaty hair from his face. "Do you need a finger? Two?"

Two of hers is what she uses, but his are enormous, as elegant and as long as they are. "One?" she asks timidly, unable to look him in the eye, still shocked that she should enjoy such a dirty pleasure as this, the filthiest of sexual acts. But trust him to have known of it, trust him to have undone her so completely at the very start, oh; she hates him and she loves him. 

But then he sucks her clitoris into his mouth once more and gently, oh, so very gently parts her folds with a fingertip and guides it inside with a soft, rocking motion. He is overly cautious what with his fixation on her virginity, it seems, feeling for the membrane with his fingertip; only when he judges her to be truly open enough for his finger's breadth does he begin to take her with it.

He looks up at her, and she can sense he is doing so, his very gaze pulling her head up from the pillows: blearily, she turns to look him in the eye and he is waiting for her, listening for her to guide his caresses. Gently, he queries her with his eyes as he curls his fingertip up a little, upwards, rocking it slightly inside of her. His eyes are full of concern, his forehead raised in a hundred wrinkles as he so takes her with but that one finger, meeting the movements of her hips as she changes the angle of them, to allow him better access to her most sensitive parts.

"The front, yes--higher," she says, and she does not know what to do with her hands, so she but clutches the sheets instead. And then she need not guide him with her words any longer: this time, as he curls his fingertip with greater boldness, it is as if he strikes white sparks from the front of her cunny, white sparks; and those sparks meet the red pulses of her clitoris and of her womb and she is gone, gone. Howling from the bottom of her lungs, her entire weight pressed into the mattress, she is undone; yet he never stops in his sucking, never stops curling his finger inside of her, and the sparks now join with the pulses to flash through her entire body. 

All the blood that had been trapped in her hips is released, wonderfully released, he letting out a little noise of surprise as she thrusts her hips down so that his finger will meet the root of her womb, too: this so as to strike out the last waves, the deepest of all waves, the final, deeper release that will send the rest of the blood surging free. Unquestioning, he but obeys her command, even turns his finger to better thrust it against the deepest part of her sex--has he had other women who have enjoyed it like this, a double orgasm at the front and then deeper, she wonders? Even with his experience, how does he _know_ how to touch her like this? 

_How does he know? How does he know--he is a witch--_ but that does not explain it, no, no, _he is a perfect bastard and he is a witch--_ The thoughts whirl and swirl, mad and screaming inside of her head as the blood whirls and swirls and crashes into her limbs a storm wave; it's only that _he knows, he knows, he knows,_ he seems to be answering her with his touch, his chuckle radiating into the bones of her pelvis, striking last, now-painful sparks out of her hips.

"Please," she cries, her hips jerking up, and immediately, he withdraws finger and mouth.

"Now, _that_ was a promising start," he purrs as he lies down on top of her; he makes to grin but has to roll his jaw instead to unlock it, so much strain has he put it under. This ruins his gloating somewhat, but she finds he looks perfectly charming as he grumbles there, indignant. 

"My cat made the same face when he mistook a jar of skin ointment for a bowl of cream," she laughs. 

He leers nevertheless as he stretches on top of her. "Ah, but unlike he, this cat got his cream," he sighs in delight, dropping a great, sticky, cunny-wet kiss upon her lips. "And he is delighted that you do not protest at the taste, either, like some women," he murmurs as he crosses his arms over her chest, pillowing his chin upon them. "It is a healthy attitude, I think, to know one's own body thus. I know doctors routinely taste a patient's urine to check for illnesses, but I swear the sexual fluids take upon themselves an imprint of a person's humours, too. And from your _delicious_ sweetness, I declare you to be in perfect health," he says and drops another kiss on the tip of her nose.

Well, now she _has_ to ask. "You've tasted your own, then?"

"Mm-hmm," he says, not even pretending to be ashamed. "A little soapy, a little salty, perhaps a little sweeter than average for a man, but that would reflect the femininity you spoke of."

"Than average?!" she blurts. 

He does not even pretend to be ashamed of that, either. "Every man is a beautiful youth once," he says, raising an eyebrow, daring her to judge him for what she knows to be a common practice among men. "For what it's worth, I meant what I said about not having eyes for any other--woman, man, boy, girl, eunuch."

"That makes you strange, too," she murmurs, now sinking her fingers into his hair; he stiffens a little, either because he is not sure what she means by that, or because he is embarrassed about the thinness of his hair, or both. 

Therefore, she rushes to clarify. "And for that strangeness, I am glad, my silver pard."

"Do you think me ancient?" he whispers, glancing at her fingers as they play with the silken strands. "Because if you do--"

"I have not forgotten about that tree-trunk you are pressing into my hip!" she exclaims. 

"That's not what I mean. I am twice your age. I would not make a widow of you too soon," he says, his voice still low, his eyes downcast. "I know of spells purported to extend a man's life, and while some of them are considered wicked, in defiance of the will of God, know that for my love for you, I would--"

She presses her finger to his lips. "Shh. You said you would not give me pain tonight, my love; therefore, I must ask you to save that discussion for later." When his eyes flash at her boldness, she continues. "Whenever I have touched upon a subject that has given you pain, _you_ have always told me to change the subject to something pleasanter; therefore, is it not fair that you should extend the same mercy to me?"

"I apologise." He kisses her finger, nuzzles it, sighing against her hand. "What should we talk about, then?"

"The tree-trunk is quite persistent," she says and grins at him, biting her lip as she wriggles her hips. "Would you let me take a look at it, see what ails it?"

He rolls onto his back, smiling with the gladness of a youth. "I shall appoint you my head gardener, forthwith! As long as you do not uproot him, you may study him as much as you wish. I--"

But his metaphor is broken into a gasp as she scoops wetness from her cunny to anoint him with.

"I merely thought he needed some watering," she says innocently. "Already my sex yearns for him so that she would at least greet him in this manner tonight, giving him a taste of the affections she will smother him with once the time comes."

"I do not protest in the slightest," he sighs, his eyes slitted. " _Please,_ continue."

She is shocked at her own boldness, but this comes to her so naturally, this primitive rite of bringing cunny to cock in a manner symbolic at least: again, she scoops her wetness onto her hand and covers his prick with it, making him glisten, making him gleam. 

Oh, but he was right; her sap smells delicious and sweet, and had not tasted bad at all. Perhaps if she--upon an impulse, she lifts his cock to her lips and kisses its shaft: he makes a noise as if a man stabbed, all air blown out of his lungs. 

"Did I hurt you?" she asks.

"Only my heart," he says, shaking his head. "You don't have to."

It is true that fellatio is the act only the lowest of slave girls, the cheapest of prostitutes perform on a man: yet they call cunny-sucking an act filthy, too, unmanlier than even sodomy. 

She shakes her head. "I want to. You enjoyed kissing my sex, and it brought me enormous pleasure. What does it matter to us what the world thinks of such and such a sexual act? What does it matter to _anyone_ if it's two lovers performing the act out of their own desire, harming none?"

"I can't believe what I am hearing," he sighs and lets his head fall back; he blinks tears from his eyes. "This is what _I_ have always believed; but to hear _you,_ the woman I love, arrive at the same conclusion, while she is still but a maiden--" he swallows his tears, his eyelashes now shining, dark, sharp. "Oh, Yassamin," he murmurs and holds his hand out to her, as if drowning.

She laces her fingers with his and kisses his cock again, again; with her lips, with her tongue she writes _I love you, I love you, I love you_ upon this tender, soft skin, this hard flesh so full of desire for her. And now her own tears fall upon his belly, glistening, quivering there before they slide down his soft, wide, woman's hips; she cannot bear merely kissing him any longer, but has to take him into her mouth, as much of him as she can, swallow him, take him inside of herself once and for all. If she cannot take him with her cunny, she reasons, she will take him most thoroughly and completely with her mouth instead; even if his sheer thickness makes it hard for her to accommodate little more than the head, she still makes a nest of her mouth for his love, sacrificing even her ability to breathe to him in this heathen love-prayer. 

She chokes upon him, uncaring of his noises of protest; gladly, she plunges her mouth down on him over and over, attempting to mimic what she thinks are the movements of sex. She dizzies from lack of air, but she _wants_ to be asphyxiated with him--if she cannot impale her hips upon this prick and plunge herself into the swoon of an orgasm upon it, is this not the next best thing?

"Yassamin," he rasps; "Yassamin!"

He has to yank her head up by the hair; it is the only way he can get her to stop, now. Strings of spittle and phlegm whip down to her neck and her breasts; rivulets of tears run all across her cheeks and she heaves there, gasping, hoarse but proud, serene. 

And it is like some heathen goddess that he looks at her, in such ardent worship, his hips bucking still, a growl rising and dying in his chest: he must have been close to orgasm, close to choking her with his sperm.

"Give me it," she says, clumsy and brutal, her voice thick from spit; she can taste a new slickness in her mouth, a new metal-salt, and it must be the sap of his arousal, must be. "Let me have it!" she hisses, tossing there as she dangles from his fist, her cunny tightening more violently than ever before at the sweet pleasure-pain this brings her. "Please, please, please," she prays. 

He closes his eyes and throws his head back upon the mattress, letting out a sigh from his chest. "I promised myself not to foul you so, I promised--" he laments as he lets go of her hair.

"Not to me," she says, licking her hand and clasping his prick once more, bringing it to her lips; from the manuals, she knows to kiss it just below the head, just below the glans, there, there; again she has made his hips lift. "An engagement gift, a dowry. I demand it, Jaffar. They named you after a wellspring, did they not? Now prove to me you are that," she says and strokes him in her hand; "prove to me you are that."

If he protests, he does so too weakly for her to hear; she takes him into her mouth once more and begins to milk him, to suck him, to drink in her husband. 

"Madwoman!" he groans, straining as he lifts onto his elbows. "Let me see your face at least," he says and struggles more as he combs her hair away from her face--perhaps he is even trying to distract himself with this discomfort; perhaps he is trying to delay release. Yet as he speaks again, rapid through trembling lips, he is serious, utterly serious. "Let me see your eyes, see that you truly mean this," he says as he tries to keep his hips from thrusting, even as she lets his cock slide sweetly in and out of her mouth. "Yassamin, Yassamin, please--" he pants, his hand hovering about her face.

She pulls back for breath, never ceasing in her stroking of him, just like he had never ceased in his caresses when he had sensed she was near release. "I love you," she says and it comes out a hoarse whisper so that she has to clear her throat; "I love you," she says more loudly, now, looking deep into his eyes as she strokes and strokes. "Please, husband, let me taste you, drink of you."

"Oh, God!" he shivers, his hips jerking up, his prayer turning into a high cry as she closes her mouth upon him once more, never taking her eyes off his. "Then take it, take it, Yassamin, take it--"

And it is astonishing how still he becomes, now, how it is only his cock that leaps in her mouth, his sack that lifts against the root of her fist. He lets out a despairing cry, as if of great pain, but she cannot worry about this for long as now the first pulse of his sperm floods her mouth. So sudden, so voluminous it is that she instinctively pulls back, coughing, some of it having entered her nose; yet immediately, she is ashamed of herself and continues to stroke him with a firm hand--firm and steady strokes, that's what the manuals had told her--and voluminous or no, she seeks to take all of his seed into her mouth.

The taste is a little soapy, slick and strange in her mouth, not the most pleasant of tastes, so she swallows it down quickly; yet underneath the lye, there is a sweetness not unlike that of her own wetness, just like he'd said, and she marvels at this femininity in the most masculine part of him, this woman hidden within the heart of his very manhood. For would another man taste as sweet? Would his skin feel as soft and as fragile against her stroking hand? Especially now that he starts from her touch, seemingly in pain, again making that soft meaow of a she-cat as he pulls away from her, apologetic.

"Please," he asks and gestures for her to pull back; "it hurts now, a little," he winces and twitches as she lets him slip out of her mouth. "It's--a man is too sensitive to touch right after," he mumbles, seeming a little embarrassed, having perhaps sensed that she is loath to let go of him, having to wanted to keep him in her mouth for longer. "It's not you. Most definitely not you. God, I cannot believe it," he laughs a little and shakes his head.

"I'm sorry for my clumsiness," she says as she lies down on top of him, a little unsure. "I only meant to give you pleasure."

"I know that," he says and kisses a stray drop of sperm from her chin. "And I felt that. Pleasure. My sweet, it was the best suck I have ever had in my life!"

She blushes. "Oh, now you are exaggerating."

"No, I mean it," he says, his eyes flicking back and forth in recollection. "I don't think I've ever had a woman perform it for me out of love, you see. Which makes it entirely different."

And suddenly, she thinks how lonely he must have been, for are the most intelligent of people often not isolated from others by their intelligence, often becoming hermits, withdrawn from a society that cannot communicate with them on their level? Courtier or no, rich man or no, he must have truly meant it when he'd said he was a lone spirit desperate for company. 

"What are you thinking of, my sweet?" he asks and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.

"What brought you here, what loneliness must have driven you here," she murmurs and rests her head upon his chest. Her throat is sore and she is exhausted, now, a little melancholy, even; thus, before she can guard herself against it, she asks one of the forbidden questions. "How far have you travelled?"

He grows silent, a little stiffer, but never ceases in his stroking of her hair. "I might as well tell you now, mightn't I?" he murmurs. "For it is the end of the masquerade, is it not?" he sighs wistfully. "Your djinni, your spirit-lover must be slain, and a man of flesh and blood must take his place."

"I'm sorry, I--"

"Don't be a fool," he groans immediately, berating himself and not her, it seems. "Of course I must tell you if I am to marry you. Baghdad. I was born and raised in Baghdad, and served at its court as vizier, like my father and grandfather before me."

Her eyes fly wide and she lifts onto her hands, staring down at him. "You're not--" 

"Yes, I am afraid I am indeed one of Barmak's clan. Therefore, I know what you must think; that's why I hesitated to tell you at first. That I was one of those heathens, free-thinkers, libertines! And let me think what else they call us..." he flicks his eyes at the ceiling and pretends to frown. "I think 'wife-sharers' and 'sodomites' were added to the end of that list this past year."

She raises her eyebrow. "And not 'sorcerers'?" she tuts. "Besides, why do you think so little of me? I told you I am not like most women. In fact, if anyone becomes the subject of rumour and gossip, then I _know_ to distrust anything and everything I may hear about them. If anything, I have always found the Barmakids fascinating _exactly_ because of the things I have heard about them--the rumours of libertinism in particular," she grins. 

"Really?" he asks, a little suspicious--perhaps he is wondering if she is merely saying this for his sake.

"Really," she says. "You see, I had even entertained a hope that should one of them one day visit us, I might find in her a kindred spirit, someone who did as she willed in the name of great wisdom and justice, and nevermind what the judges thought. For that has been my impression of the Barmakids--that whatever they have done, they have done in the name of progress and of humanity."

"Tell that to the Caliphs, please," Jaffar huffs. "I once tried to stop Harun from dismantling the Arch of Khosrow at Ctesiphon--the greatest architectural miracle since the hanging gardens of Babylon!--but did he listen? No. He went and smashed the entire thing to pieces, and suspected my father and my brothers of Magian sympathies ever since," he growls. This is clearly a well-nursed hatred of his, the Barmakids always having had to fight the unreason of Caliphs and religious authorities. "And that time I told him we were having Indian medical texts translated for our libraries, to be used by physicians--he flew into a rage, saying he'd always known us for a bunch of pagans! Were he not dead, I could strangle him with my own hands, I--"

"I do not doubt that," she says, silencing Jaffar with a kiss before he can truly whip himself into a rage. "But hush, my love. Know that you do not have to fear such barbarity from me. I am not a Caliph nor a judge, not the last time I looked," she says and smiles. 

He pulls her into a deep, relishing, adoring kiss and rolls her over, so that he is resting his entire weight atop her. "How about Calipha, then?" he purrs, rutting against her cunny even if his prick is now soft. 

She blinks. "What do you mean?"

He glances up and makes a mock-pout. "Ooh, only that the Caliph Ahmad is a weakling and perhaps it was high time a Barmakid took his place. After all, we have ruled the empire for a century from behind the throne--is it not time we stepped out from hiding and ruled openly?"

"You wouldn't!" she stares up at him.

He frowns. "You would not wish to be Queen? Empress?"

She looks around herself pointedly, encompassing this world she so loathes in one glance. "I wish I weren't even a princess! You'd have to be constantly putting the entire empire to sleep to make it in any way tolerable for us," she huffs.

He thinks of it, truly thinks of it--but what astounds her is that he seems to be taking her words seriously, even if she is but a woman. Yet he knows her to be right--it is true that a crown is a heavy thing to carry, and comes with more responsibility and misery than happiness. 

"Besides, you do not seem to me at all like the type that would ever be happy on a throne," she says. 

"A scholar prefers the solitude of his chambers, and you can't very well rule from a cave," he mumbles. "I hate that you are right," he says with a wry grin. "You have put to words my very own doubts about such an endeavour. But--and I have to be honest here, my love--if I will not pursue the throne, I am sure one of my brothers will. So, you see, if we marry, there's still a high chance of you remaining a princess, I am afraid."

She wraps her arms around his neck, and her legs around his waist. "I suppose that is a risk I am going to have to accept," she sighs. "As long as you promise that you can use your magic like this when we are in our own house," she whispers against his lips, her kisses now bitter from despair. "I couldn't bear to live without my djinni-days, now; I would go mad if I could not escape into your embrace."

He hugs her tight and groans into her shoulder. "The feeling is mutual. I am going to miss this place," he says. "Miss the beautiful gardens of Basra into which I could escape Caliphs and viziers. You know, this very moment I am thinking of perhaps retiring here. Getting a little house here in Basra, somewhere on the outskirts where it's quiet, and live happily there with you ever after."

"It would have to have a big garden," she says, tracing his spine with her fingertips. 

He lifts his head and blows hair from his eyes. "My lady, I will promise you the greatest, the most beautiful garden man has ever engineered!" he laughs. "Vaster than this one, even, full of secluded trysting-places."

"Aye, in which our children would then have illicit affairs!" she cries in mock-shock.

"If they take after their mother and father, yes," he grins and kisses her nose. "But, come. Did you wish me to stay all night, tonight? I must know how long to spin out the spell, you see."

She gazes out of the window; as they have talked, the sun has set but the moon has not risen yet. "I wished you could stay all night, but that's probably not sensible, is it?" she mumbles, guilty. 

"It will be the last morning upon which you have to wake up without me by your side, my lady, I swear. For I will arrive before your father tomorrow, in full splendour, asking for your hand in marriage," he says. "If all goes well, we can draw up the marriage contract immediately and from then on, I can deal with you as I please," he growls playfully and nips her ear. "I could carry you off straight away if you wished."

She yelps. "Please do!" Her father would probably not prostest; despite the rumours of libertinism, the Barmakids are still the richest and the most powerful family in the entire empire. Why, her father has been desperate to marry her off; she laughs as she imagines his face as she, for once, does not turn down a marriage-offer--the poor man is going to have a heart attack from sheer surprise!

"What are you thinking of, my love?" Jaffar asks, rocking her in his arms.

"Whether we shall wed in Basra or Baghdad. Did you mean it when you said you would retire?"

He kisses her cheek. "Baghdad. It will be faster that way--I can even spirit you away by magic, so we do not have to waste a week travelling there by river. We'll arrange the most splendid of feasts, I'll finish off my affairs there, and then we'll be free to move wherever we please. And I do mean it, yes: even a lifetime as a pair of beggars in exile would, to me, be preferable to a life without you."

She blinks. "This is all so very soon..." she says and laughs. "But never has anything felt as right to me. Is this what the poets mean when they speak of true love?"

"The poets all want quick access to their beloved's drawers, my child," he chuckles. "As a matter of fact, so do I. I have this palace by the Tigris that's in a fairly secluded spot, and we can have our honeymoon there..." he purrs, rolling his hips against her. 

She groans and kisses him passionately, her cunny pulsing against his rut despite her exhaustion. "Careful, or I shall go and wake up my father in the middle of the night to sign that marriage contract!"

"Tomorrow," he says and kisses her hand, curling up tight beside her. "Tomorrow, my child."

"And all tomorrows." She takes his hand and kisses it in turn, gazing deep into his eyes; even in the darkness, they are so blue and so vast she feels as if a bird soaring into their skies, high into the exhilarating new freedom that awaits her.


	4. Chapter 4

She has been bathed and powdered and perfumed; every hair on her body shaven and plucked, her hair oiled, her brows painted with indigo. All of her tinkles with gold and silver jewellery, her hair divided into six braids with gold bells plaited into them, gems, feathers. Her hands and feet are painted with henna in the most ornate of patterns, Jaffar's name woven into the designs of pards and flowers and peacocks, and she cannot make a movement without her bracelets and anklets making sweet music wherever she goes.

Not that she goes much anywhere: her aunts and her cousins and her nieces exhort her to sit down on the softest of cushions and only allow her to eat cakes and sweets while they continue on beautifying her, as they have done for the past three days. If only her mother was alive to see this, she thinks as she gazes upon herself in the mirror, her eyes a little hazy from the amount of kohl they've been lined with. Would she be happy seeing her daughter married to a Barmakid? Would she have been disappointed in Yassamin having persuaded Jaffar out of pursuing the throne? She hopes that somewhere, her mother is watching and smiling; oh, she hopes she is doing the right thing.

"And now, for the most important part!" 

"Aunt Jamila, no!"

"Aunt Jamila, yes," the matriarch of the harem says as she lays an old, well-thumbed love manual into Yassamin's lap and sits in beside her, grinning widely. "We keep this one hidden from the men, as it contains instructions on how to control them, how to wrap them about your little finger."

"I already have him wrapped about my little finger!" Yassamin cries and rolls her eyes. 

But it is of no use: all the women who have followed her from Basra have been waiting for this, their most cherished part of all weddings: the licence to be a little lewd in the name of cheering up the bride, the chance to leaf through sheer pornography on the pretext of educating her.

Amira tilts her head at one of the illustrations and frowns. "How is that physically even possible?"

Jamila shoos the innocent teenager aside. "They use straps, there, see? They hold the woman in place. And in that one, he's wearing a strap of a kind around his own member, to make sure it stays hard enough. A very practical device, well worth remembering for those who marry older men," Jamila cackles and nudges Yassamin with her elbow.

Yassamin is this close to telling her there's nothing wrong with her bridegroom's member, but she knows she must endure: she draws in a deep breath and pretends to listen to the older women's advice with interest. On and on, Jamila turns the pages, and while many of the positions seem fantastical or even perverse, Yassamin knows they must be nothing in comparison to what awaits her in the bedchamber of a Barmakid. 

Jamila seems to have plucked that very thought from her head, for she even voices it out loud. "Of course, you might be lucky and he'll spare you his more... unorthodox practices, since you are to be his head-wife; rich men often inflict their greater perversions only upon slave girls," Jamila says and measures her, but Yassamin can tell there is a spark of jealousy in her eyes. "But it never hurts to know these things. Did the girls give you that herbal enema, as I instructed?"

"Jamila!" Yassamin flushes scarlet and looks around. "Yes. Yes, they did," she mutters and then glares at Jamila. "But I am sure the rumours are exaggerated. Besides, why would a man bugger a woman, if he can afford boys and eunuchs?"

But inside, she is not so sure: _Believe you me, if I let my prick do as it willed, already you would have been ravished and buggered and irrumated a thousand times over!_ Jaffar purrs in her mind, in her womb, and she swallows.

But Jamila does not care. "The enema will help you accommodate a man in your cunny, too, especially when it's your first time. It's a good idea to have one before coitus in general; most women would tell you that a full gut presses painfully on the womb during sex--surely you have felt how painful it is to be constipated during your bleeding? Well, then. Best to keep it all clean down there for your own comfort. And the ingredients are well worth remembering, too--the saffron and the honey will help circulation and stir desire, to make you more sensitive; that way you, too, will be able to enjoy the act at least somewhat."

Somewhat! If they only knew. It hurts Yassamin's face to try and keep from smiling; she still pretends to be the wide-eyed innocent, even if she is sure Jaffar would never allow her to leave his bed unsated. His honour would not be able to bear it: in fact, she is a little terrified of how sore he will make her in his attempts to prove his skill as a lover.

But it is then that Jaffar's messenger, a tall black officer arrives to announce them that the reception hall is ready and that they are all waiting for the bride. Four of Jaffar's male relatives arrive in tow, carrying a lavishly decorated red and gold palanquin.

It's time.

Jamila throws the great red bridal veil over Yassamin's face, makes sure the richly embroidered ends of it reach the ground from all sides, then pins it in place. All the women burst into ululations, prayers, incantations and all make sigils of good luck about Yassamin; at last, they sprinkle her with the last of the rosewater, the last few grains of camphor and waft the smoke of esfand seeds about her head seven times in blessing.

She is ready.

 _Is she ready?_ she thinks to herself, her feet unsteady as she is helped into the palanquin. _Am I ready to become the wife of a sorcerer?_ she asks herself, vacillating between hysterical happiness and hysterical tears. But such fluctuations in temper are normal for brides, and she blinks furiously so as not to smear her face-paint, but still, she wonders. 

She is ready; she must be ready. Her body has been prepared by the women, her soul has been prepared by Jaffar's care: now, she but lowers her head in humble prayer and begs, pleads for the Almighty to bless her, to give her that which is required of the wife of a man possessed of such power over realms of both earth and spirit. 

_Please, oh, All-Highest, Most Merciful: please gift me with the strength and the wisdom and the love you gifted Bilqis with when she first stepped into Solomon's bedchamber. For I know of no other women ever to have gone through such things, to have taken for their husbands magicians, men so especially graced with your spirit-gifts; please, oh Lord, enfold me with your blessings so that I might be to him the wise and kind and tender wife such a wise and kind and tender man deserves._

But it is then that something crackles, flashes and explodes beside her: she jerks and screams. As soon as they'd arrived, the flash and the noise are gone: still, she peeks out from between the palanquin's curtains. It is bad luck for the bride to peek out, let alone look behind herself, but this might be an emergency--such a rich procession through town is bound to attract bandits, and should that be the case, she would be a fool to remain still.

"I say, what's that noise?" she cries out to the men carrying the palanquin, holding the curtains so that they still cover her face from the outside.

"But your groom's celebratory fireworks, madam," the man in front replies with a weary, sarcastic tone, as if this was the sort of display he found ostentatious and unnecessary. "You will be seeing more of them at court, I'll wager; people of our class are used to them here in Baghdad. The plebeians less so: methinks your Jaffar is deliberately trying to scare them away," he continues in the same bored tone.

Immediately, Yassamin dislikes him, shocked herself at the way she now judges an unknown man by first sight. But there's something about this man's sneering voice and his sneering face--yes, his face, for now, he even dares try and catch a peek of her over his shoulder--that repulse her. He glances behind himself, revealing to her a profile as long and as thin as his brother's, but with a nose so prominent it turns his otherwise handsome face sinister in a scavengerlike way. It's like being eyed by a carrion crow or a rat, she thinks, and quickly, she pulls back inside so she does not have to look at him.

"They think them djinn, you see," he drawls, and with this 'they,' he seems to lump Yassamin herself among them, presuming her as dull and as superstitious as a peasant. 

"Had I seen them with mine own eyes, I would have immediately recognised them for what they were," she snaps. "In the olden days, my father put on many a fireworks display."

"You speak as if he no longer does. Did he run out of money?"

Her mouth falls open in shock. "I don't think that's at all appropriate!"

"Forgive me, my lady," he says, and it's clear he is not at all sorry. "My brother has been liberal with the wine today. And it is only that--well. I was going to say that after you have seen the wealth of our family, everyone will seem a peasant in comparison. But of course, you are one of us, now," he says. _"Sister."_

"Who are you to address me as 'sister'?" she asks. Thankfully, going by the festive noises outside growing louder, they are approaching Jaffar's house and soon she will be able to leave this conversation once and for all. But she must know who this audacious boor is--she knows that with him, she is going to have to watch her back.

"Al-Fadl ibn Yahya ibn Khalid al-Barmaki, Lord Governor of Khorasan, Amir of Balkh." He leaves in a mocking pause. "At your service."

Jaffar's older brother, then. So this is the man responsible for most, if not all of the foul rumours of the Barmakids: immediately, she can see why. He is to his brother as night to day: she hopes she will not have to deal with him much.

"I see. And do your wives share your courtly manners, my lord?"

He but laughs, a laughter loud and dry and cruel; but then they are at the palace and Yassamin has other things to think about. She takes a deep breath and steps out of the palanquin.

"Yassamin!"

She glances in the direction of the voice--it's Jaffar, perched on the rooftop, as is customary for a bridegroom welcoming home his bride. In this case, the rooftop is that of the diwan leading to the palace proper: each and every column has been festooned with ribbons and flowers, the eaves decked with ornaments of gold; the midday sun glances off them so brightly she has to shield her eyes even through her veil.

"My lord!" she cries at him in delight. 

"Catch!"

"Oh!" she has to be quick--and it is an orange he has thrown at her, a bitter orange fresh and fragrant that she is now clasping in her palms. But why are Fadl and the other men groaning?

"You were supposed to hit her on the head!" Fadl cries, to Yassamin's great shock.

"Nonsense!" Jaffar silences them with a gesture. "You see, my love, we have a cruel custom here of the groom having to pelt his bride with fruit the first time she enters his home--an old fertility rite, I suspect. And they say that if the bride manages to catch the fruit, she will forever be the one ruling over her husband. I merely wanted to make sure there was no question about that with us."

"You are supposed to walk through the door from underneath his feet," Fadl mutters, "to display to him your obedience."

"I heard that," Jaffar tells Fadl, smiling in the face of his brother's dark glower. "I will not submit her to that barbaric custom either."

"It's bad luck!" Fadl glares at them both. "A house ruled by women is a house ruined!"

Yet Jaffar but tilts his head and sighs in an exaggerated imitation of the besotted youth. "Look at her. Isn't she radiant? _She_ has been good luck and Fortune itself to me. Therefore, the rules are changed: it is I who shall shelter her and serve her!" he declares and promptly, flips himself up so that he is now standing on his hands and his head.

Yassamin but blinks, astonished at this farce--she does not know what to think.

"Hurry!" Jaffar cries, his face now obscured by the eaves, but she can hear he is still grinning like a maniac.

She gathers up her skirts and her veil and steps inside the diwan, now smiling so hard it hurts; even Fadl's grumblings following at her heels cannot hurt her now. And soon, Fadl fades from her mind altogether as the women of Jaffar's household--his older sister, Dunya, the sweetest of them all--welcome her and lead her to the bridal seat. It is a platform not unlike a throne, great and flat and wide, enough to accommodate a dozen people; now Dunya and three other women take up the corners of the ornate bridal canopy and spread it out above her head in blessing. 

Yet as Jaffar approaches the platform and takes her by the hand, the rest of the world might as well cease to exist for her. 

While his suit is simple in cut--consisting of but a long jacket and trousers--it is richer and more elaborate than anything she has ever seen even on her own father: Jaffar is clad head to toe in thick, shining white silk, embroidered all over in bold swirls of pearls and gold. The same pards and peacocks and flowers that now decorate her hands decorate the fabric of his suit, leaping about his tall and lean frame, giving to his each movement a radiance, a lustre of living flame. But one cannot accomplish that with gold thread alone: it is only when he takes his seat beside her that she realises there are diamonds woven into the fabric here and there to catch the light, white and yellow diamonds scattered all over his body to bathe it in a divine glow. 

Yes, a glow divine: again, she thinks of the halo with which the Simurgh had crowned the righteous kings, that radiance the Magians call _farrah_. And again it seems to her that Jaffar is the Simurgh himself, now bathing her in his majesty as he takes her under his wing. For he may not be a king or ever become a king, yet he is the very embodiment of those qualities that come together in the concept of farrah: dominion, potency, vitality-- _the life-force itself,_ combined with the skill and the wisdom with which to wield it.

And as he reaches out to wrap the wedding-necklace about her throat, it is no more and no less than the sacred torque of the ancient kings, representing the very same force; with this he seals his possessing of her, his encircling of her with his _radiance, radiance_. 

"You look beautiful, my sweet," he says, adoring her through her veil. 

But it is through the sky-mirror of his eyes that she can hear these words: _And upon thee have I now impressed my seal, sanctified thee with the signets of my love and my grace; tonight, have I perfected you, Yassamin of Basra, made you for me the seal of all women._

She can barely hear him, so intoxicated is she with him still, her eyes now travelling down the narrow rivulets of sapphires framing his collar. Beneath it, his under-shirt is of a silk as thin as her veil, iridescent as it toys with the light; but more beautiful still is the gold of his skin now revealed to the pleasure of her eyes, breathing to her its wonderful perfumes of musk and oudh and ambergris.

"You--" she murmurs, gasping as he squeezes her hand--his hands, too, painted beautifully with henna--"you are divine," she blurts, a strange thing to say, but it is the truth. It's as if today, he has taken off his mortal disguise and has come to her and to his family as what he truly is: the very sun itself, come to take for himself a mortal bride. 

_Fear not, girl-child!_  
_For We have sent him to you_  
_So that through him you might know_  
_Our Beauty, Our Mercy and Our Might._

And now, this mortal bride blushes, feeling very small; she chokes, for is she now not married to one of God's angels? Is he any less? And now she is so happy that she is dancing upon the brink of a swooning, whirling madness. "I'm sorry," she whispers, not daring to look him in the eye, too much staring considered lewd and improper for a bride in any case. 

He but laughs, a laughter warm and purring, and as improper as that, too, may be, he never takes his hand from hers. There is a lewdness to his smile, an eroticism to his grip and the weight of his presence that seem calculated: with these, he means to bring her back to earth a little. But only a little, she thinks; for inside, she still feels as light as air, in her heart a light that would lift to the skies of his eyes and forever there remain a star. 

In a trance, she sits there as the minstrels sing the wedding songs, as the women grind sugar cones into powder over their wedding canopy, as she and Jaffar feed to each other from their hands honey and oil and bread.

"I love you," Jaffar murmurs to her, with his eyes half-lidded, and she is sure he has not yet imbibed any of the wine; his eyes overflow with tears as he dips his hand underneath her veil and brings his honeyed fingertip to her mouth. And she thinks of that time he had brought the ball of rice to her mouth, thinks of the time he had said her nourishment put him in good blood, and now her own eyes fill with tears as she delicately, sweetly, modestly tastes the honey off his finger.

"Go on, bite," Jaffar whispers, and she dares a small nibble, earning herself a hiss from Jaffar: but apparently, this is another rite by which one partner's dominance over the other is measured, for Fadl groans loudly in indignation once more. 

"You should bite her entire hand off for that!" Fadl cries, grumbling into his wine as Yassamin dips her finger in the honeypot and brings it to Jaffar's lips in turn.

Jaffar's eyes narrow, but now in lust; his ever-red, ever-gleaming mouth now lewder than she has ever seen it before. He but laughs at Fadl, yet keeps his cat-eyes on Yassamin, his gaze a pard pressing down its prey; again, he laughs as he takes her wrist and brings her hand to his mouth. "Brother, brother," he croons, never taking his eyes off Yassamin's. "What makes you think I won't _eat her alive?_ "

And it is at that that he bites, _bites,_ so hard Yassamin shrieks; the crowd erupts into ululations and dirty cackles, and she is glad they cannot know just how hard her cunny is now clenching, clenching; she thinks that any moment, now, she will faint.

But it is now that the ceremony is at an end: everyone knows that by this point, the bridegroom is hot under his suit in more ways than one, and that the bride is indeed about to topple over. 

"It would be cruel to keep you here for much longer," Dunya tells her with a friendly hand on her shoulder. "The wedding chamber is ready," she says, and from that, Yassamin knows that it is also kind Dunya who shall keep vigil in the neighbouring room, as is traditional, so that the bride will know there'll be another woman at hand should she need help with her nerves. It is also Dunya who will, tomorrow morning, bring out the bloodstained sheet and present it to the guests as proof of the bride's virginity.

With a shudder, Yassamin lets herself be helped up; Jaffar never lets go of her hand, gazing at her through her veil in love. _Courage,_ he seems to be telling her with his eyes, _courage._

She squeezes him back. 

And it is with merry songs and sprinkled flower petals and billowing clouds of precious incense that they are led to the bridal chamber. The ceilings here are vast, high vaults--to be expected from a family that had so loved the arches of Ctesiphon--beautifully tiled in various hues of blue, the walls themselves bearing gold inscriptions praising God's name. It is a new palace, not old and crumbling like the one at Basra had been; Jaffar had told her that for a brief while, Harun had even had the audacity to make his home here because it was more beautiful than his own royal palace. 

But now, it seems, Jaffar again has his home to himself, and a happy place, a place filled with mirth it seems. The servants here do not seem timid but well-treated, the tales of the Barmakids' kindness and fairness proving themselves true simply through their servants' smiles and the ease with which they carry themselves: no slave here seems beaten, no maid humiliated. Yassamin marvels at how such a household can even keep on functioning--what forms of discipline does Jaffar employ, then, if not corporal punishments? Does he simply reward his staff well, or does he keep them happy with his magics, or is it a little bit of both?

But it is then that they are at the bridal chamber door, and Dunya shoos everyone away with her torch. 

"This way," she says and smiles at Yassamin as she unlocks the door. "It's his master bedroom, but we made sure to make it especially beautiful for tonight."

And they have succeeded, for even Jaffar lets out a hearty "My God!" as they step inside.

Roses. The entire room is a world of roses. The floor has been carpeted thickly with rose petals, in various shades of pink and red and white; the walls have been hung with garlands of roses, baskets of roses hanging from the ceiling and further baskets nodding upon the windowsills and the tables. Full, succulent, sensual roses as if a thousand mouths opening to kiss them in greeting, enfolding them in their fragrance: Yassamin swoons so that Jaffar has to come and stand behind her, to hold her in his arms. 

"It's beautiful, Dunya," he murmurs in awe. "You have outdone yourselves. God will look kindly upon you for this."

"Good luck," Dunya says and kisses them both on the cheek. "God bless you tonight, and all your nights from now unto eternity, upon earth and in Paradise."

"Thank you, Dunya," Jaffar says and kisses her upon the cheek, too.

And then they are alone.


	5. Chapter 5

Yassamin does not know whether to feel amused--or perhaps even a little neglected--as Jaffar leaps around the room like an excited cat, climbing onto the windowsills, fascinated by all the roses. "I am merely wondering about the mechanics of it, of how they hung all these things," he explains, "and above all, how they banished all the insects from them!" he grins. "Methinks my sister must have been going through some of my magical books to accomplish this; I would not put it past her."

"She is a good woman," Yassamin says and takes a step, two, closer to the bed: its canopies, too, are hung with wreaths of roses and upon the sheets, rose petals have been arranged in auspicious patterns, invoking the blessings of God upon their marriage. 

"Forgive me, my sweet," Jaffar says, hops down from the windowsill and comes to take her by the hands. "It's your wedding night, and here I stand, still acting like Jaffar the bachelor, the engineer," he murmurs. "Whereas from this day on, you are to be the centre of my world," he says, his voice a little strained from a strange thrill, as if his entire self were pulled taut from excitement. "May I?" he asks and takes his hands to her veil.

"Of course you may, you fool," she laughs and pulls off the pins that hold the veil in place. In fact, he would have had the right to gaze upon her face as soon as he'd wrapped the wedding necklace about her throat, but instinctively, they had both wanted to delay this moment, too. Even if as soon as the veil had got stained with honey and breadcrumbs, she had been anxious for him to take it off--it's high time he did.

With a flourish, he rolls up her veil with both hands and then sweeps it away, and then it is she who is swept away: with a happy groan from him and a shriek of delight from her, he has plucked her up in his arms like a babe. He spins her and spins her until both her slippers fly off her feet; he, too, kicks off his shoes in mid-dance and covers her mouth in kisses as he carries her to the bed. There, they tumble like wine into a goblet, kissing and kissing, covered in rose petals as they swoon there and roll there, hugging each other, moaning joy into each other's mouths. 

"At last, at last!" he cries and sinks his fingers into her hair; he laughs as he discovers the complexity of her six braids and all the ornaments woven therein. "Yet I see they have made even this into a challenge," he mock-grumbles, yet adores it as he begins to undo her hair.

"It's unfair," she says as she interrupts him with a kiss, "that I cannot do the same. They have made me into this elaborate present for you to open and to relish, a feast for all the senses, but what do I get? A simple suit! What kind of a challenge is that?"

He pouts and flicks up his eyes, making an utterly ridiculous face. "Ooh, perhaps I could come to you as a woman sometime. Have all of this put on me," he says and runs her braids through his hand, "just to give you the pleasure of undressing me."

She frowns. "Somehow I doubt it would be the first time for you, my half-woman man," she grins, squirming in delight at the idea despite its perversity.

"I admit nothing!" he declares, his eyes twinkling so wickedly she knows herself to have been right. "But, my sweet, let us again make an equal deal of it: you let me undo your ornaments, whereas I will let you undo the clothes, both yours and mine. Is that not fair, do you think?" he asks her with a kiss.

"It's fair enough for me," she replies with another. 

And never could she have imagined that having her hair unbraided would ever feel as wonderful, as sensual, as full of eroticism as it does now. For he never takes his eyes from hers as he undoes her braids with the curiosity of the scientist, every little ornament he now throws aside a little triumph for him: he relishes the task with the widest of grins, only pausing now and then to press his face into her hair, to inhale her perfumes from it. 

For each one of her braids has been perfumed with a different substance, and he makes sure to appreciate each one. "Camphor," he murmurs as he combs free the locks from her first braid, naming each new scent in succession: "Jasmine. Oudh. Ambergris. Violets. And I think this is--" he lifts the strands from the sixth braid to his nose and sniffs carefully, "Roses! That's why it was hard to tell at first; already my nose is drunk from roses."

"Do you think it's true what they say?" she murmurs and leans into his embrace. "That there is a wine of a kind in roses, that that's why its scent intoxicates us?"

"I do have some attar of roses in my laboratory, so I could find out," he says with a kiss. "But look who's bringing science into the bedroom, now!" he mocks her with another kiss upon the tip of her nose. Swiftly, he pulls off her bangles, her necklaces, her anklets; so swiftly it tickles her and she squeals in his arms, shrieks from her laughter. 

"I _have_ to do this quickly to distract you!" he laughs, pinning her wrists into the mattress. The bangles clatter onto the floor as he devours her mouth and undulates his hips into hers, making sure she knows he is more than ready for the consummation, but still wishes to spin out the play. "Now, my sweet," he sighs as he pulls back from the kiss. "Your turn."

She, too, wishes to spin the pleasure on, on; she lies there with her breasts heaving, adoring him until her breathing evens. He does not wish to let go of her, and she adores the grip of his hands upon her wrists; again, her womb lifts and her cunny tightens in sweet anticipation. Her husband, her husband, so wonderful there in the afternoon light, his eyes bluer than the skies looking down upon them through the windows; again, her hips lift and she lets her sex meet his, showing him how eager she is to join with him, her flesh singing to him its promise: _soon, my beloved, soon._

He raises his eyebrow in challenge and lets go of her wrists. 

"Come here, then, you rascal," she says and hops off the bed. "After all, don't they say it's polite of a man to undress first?"

"So that women can see how ridiculous we look when we are naked, yes," he says as he gets up, then lifts his hands in a gesture of disarmament. "Do your worst."

She takes a step back and measures him from head to toe, pretending to consider. "Let's see. I thought this was the most expensive suit I have ever seen on a man, and while I would gladly tear it off your body"--oh, but she loves his expression of surprise there!--"I simply cannot bring myself to destroy such a beautiful work of art."

"Oh, but I doubt anyone will wear it after me anyhow. I was thinking of having the gold and the gems taken out to be distributed as alms among the poor."

"Really?" she frowns. "I thought you might want your son to wear it, when it's his turn."

He laughs, his voice high, glad. "Again your thoughts fly years ahead while you are still virgin, my love! Come. Which garment is it that you would remove first?"

"The turban, I think," she says and tiptoes up to him, her tongue peeking out of her mouth as she studies the way it's been wrapped about his head. "Is it of the type one can just lift off?" she says and feels for it, but evidently not. "Where are the pins?"

"Everywhere. There are so many I cannot remember. It took them an hour to fold it all in place."

"No wonder!" she murmurs, what with the amount of embroideries, gems it has been covered in, too: they would have wanted to display as much of the fabric as possible. But now, she notices that the biggest pearls upon the turban are, in fact, the heads of the pins it is held together with: soon, she has pulled them out and can begin to unravel the yards and yards of white silk. She is surprised at how much this tires her hands, the silk so heavy and wound in such tight and complex circles about his head; yet she is glad of this labour, for it distracts her from the heat of her own hips somehwat, this terrible ache in them that she is still persistently trying to ignore. 

The fabric has been wound so tight that once she has finally unravelled it all, they are standing in a veritable lake of silk. 

"There!"

He lifts his head and shakes his hair free. "Finally. Pardon me if I smell of sweat."

Before he has got up from his crouch, she sinks her face into his hair and inhales it. "Oh, no; I love it. It is a clean sweat. And you know, it complements the musk so nicely."

"Finally a compliment on my masculinity!" he says and takes her by the waist, blowing strands of hair from his face. "See, this is why I came to you earlier: so you wouldn't have to be disappointed on your wedding night, discovering your husband only had half a head of hair."

She sinks her fingers into the black and silver waves of it and kisses him on the mouth. "Didn't I already tell you it suits you?"

"No?"

"Well, it suits you. I thought you had an intelligent forehead, you see, and this peak here..." she traces her finger down it. "I think it makes you look even wickeder, somehow."

He lets out a purring laugh and rocks her in his arms. "And you like wickedness?"

"Not true wickedness, like that of your brother. A sensual wickedness, like yours."

He rolls his eyes. "I don't even have to ask which one of my brothers you meant by that. Let us not talk about him on our wedding night, however!"

"I was merely thinking that it was his uncouthness, his ungentlemanly manner that threw your good manners and your princeliness in sharp relief, my love. He reminded me of what men are at their worst, and in doing so, reminded me of exactly how rare and how wonderful a creature I now hold in my arms as husband. God must have sent Fadl as a reminder, for even now I feel like going down on my knees to thank the Lord for this gift," she groans and kisses him once more.

"Well, I am not stopping you," he leers and lets go of her so quickly she stumbles, and does indeed fall onto her knees on the floor.

She rolls her eyes as she balances there, clinging to his legs. "You are shameless."

"I thought you liked the wickedness. Come, there's no reason why you shouldn't remove the trousers first."

But she is ignoring him, now pressing her face to his groin, just as he wants her to: she inhales this, the deeper musk of his genitals with wanton delight. "This smells even better," she murmurs, and now, she does not even care that she gets kohl and rouge all over the white silk. 

"Mm-hmm? I made sure to shave and wash thoroughly for you."

"It is a clean scent here, too," she says and looks up at him as she undoes the laces. "But let me make sure--oh--!"

And now she laughs because his erection is so prominent that it is, in fact, making it difficult for her to undress him; it clings to his trousers so that Jaffar even winces as she pulls them down. His prick tugs once upon the silk and then, with a mighty arc, it springs free; he gasps a little as it slides across the beads and jewels of his jacket, finally pointing proudly at his chin.

"Clean?" he asks, his voice a little reedy.

She nuzzles his thigh, making a point of not touching his genitals yet. "Mm," she says, closing her eyes and breathing her lungs full of him, her entire body now tense from how much she wants to taste him, suck him, take all of him inside of herself. Oh, but she wants him, wants him to clothe himself in her flesh--

But she isn't finished yet. With staggering limbs, she gets up and undoes his jacket, her fingers trembling as she struggles with the fastenings. Now, she is in a rush and a fury, her ears deaf to what she thinks is his laughter and a small sound of tearing as she pulls the undershirt off him; she wants him nude, bare, undone.

"There," he says and spreads his hands, stepping out of the silks. "As naked as the day God made me," he purrs, his cock dragging against his belly, his balls lifting in their sack. "Do with me as you will, my lady."

"I would, I would," she says, now out of breath, "if I were ready. Hang on--" she moans as she begins to tear at her clothes.

But he tuts at her, taking her hand. "There's no hurry."

"God!" she groans, pressing her face against his chest. "I'm sorry. I thought to strip slowly, to tease you, but I am burning, Jaffar, burning. I must have you now or die," she moans and strikes his chest with her fist, too ashamed to even look him in the eye.

"Shh," he says and takes her chin with his hand, smiling down at her, glad. "But hearing you say that makes me the happiest man in the world. Would you that I undressed you instead?"

She swallows and nods. "I think I have become incapacitated. Therefore it's for the best."

And she is right: the hooks and the laces and the pins and the buttons on her suit are so strange and so complex that she would not be able to undress herself alone without destroying the garments. And she _does_ want to save this suit for her own daughter, she thinks, the sentimental fool that she is; that thought helps her remain still as Jaffar begins to undress her. With a soft kiss on each body part as he liberates it, he slides the suit gently off her limbs, undoes even the trickiest of hooks deftly and easily with his fingers, his sweet and long and tender and skilled fingers. 

_Just as he has opened me_ , she thinks and lets out a shuddering breath of delight, tears following at its heels.

He is now kneeling before her, his hand upon the string of her under-drawers, the last garment she is still wearing. "What is it, my love?"

"Oh, it's nothing--"

"Tell me."

"It's only that this is--" she says, now weeping too hard from her joy to speak right, wiping her face with her hennaed hand. "That this is how you have undone me in the soul, too. Opened me, taken me with such skill and such ease. This has all happened so fast, so quickly, an entire garden blossoming overnight and it's so strange--"

"Shh, shh," he says, and with skill and ease, he has undone her drawers and she stands before him naked.

"Jaffar--"

"You know what they say about the bridal henna, do you not?" he lifts out his hand and laces it with hers. "How if the bridegroom cannot find his name in the patterns, his wife is to forever dominate him?"

"Yes?" she laughs through her tears. "Let me guess. You were going to defy that custom as well?"

"As a matter of fact... I think I can see my name right here," he grins and kisses her mound.

"But they didn't paint me there?" she asks, too stunned to even be aroused by his kiss. Or had the women done it while she had been sleeping? Had Jamila, in the darkness of the night, placed there one of her strange sigils to ensure fertility?

"I mean I can see _a wellspring,_ " Jaffar moans; his lashes fall to his cheeks and he buries his mouth in her sex. 

She laughs and wails and groans as she staggers there and clutches his head, hanging on for dear life as he begins to lap at her, suck at her, devour her. To prove his metaphor, he drinks from her like a man about to die from thirst in the desert; soon enough, with his ridiculous slurps and moans and groans, he has made her squirm hysterically from laughter.

"Stop!" she giggles.

He pulls back and his entire mouth is gleaming from her sap. "Most definitely a wellspring," he sighs and leans back, smacking his mouth in delight. "But my knees are getting tired from all this heathen prayer. Come, my love: I believe this thing here is meant for us," he laughs and staggers back onto the bed with her, pulling her into his arms with a kiss.

"Finally," she whispers and clasps his prick in her hand; she drinks his moans from his lips. "Please, husband, take me. I have waited long enough. I am ready."

"Let me make sure of it," he murmurs gently and rolls her onto her back so that they are now lying side by side; she on his left, his right hand between her legs. And now it is he who drinks in her moans as he begins to stroke her sex; instinctively, easily she spreads her legs for his caress. She is so wet that the air feels cool upon her cunny; yet as Jaffar pulls up his hand and takes her clitoris between two fingers, the shock it brings to her womb is painful.

"Am I squeezing too hard?" he murmurs. "No, don't touch me just yet."

"A little," she says and bites her lip. "But I am ready, I think."

"Show me how you stroke yourself," he says and brings his fingers lower, giving her room to slip her own hand underneath his. 

"But why should I do that when I have you?" she huffs. "Come. I have told you already; I am ready."

But there is a dark flash in his eyes and now, he brings his fingers to her entrance, testing her there. "But I must learn how to touch you, my sweet;" he says, and it seems it is with the power of his eyes alone that he now draws her hand to her clitoris, that he now forces her to spread herself, to show him the exact spot where she places her fingers to best pleasure herself. "That's it, my sweet, that's it," he purrs, his voice sickeningly slithering, now, and yet her cunny clenches underneath his touch: even more sickening is the wet, chortling laugh he lets out as he can feel this, her tightening around his fingertips. "So that's how you rub your little cunny, then," he croons, "so that's how," he pants hot and wet against her ear, and he is awful, horrible, making her body arch off the bed as each of his croons whips through her a lash of perverse pleasure.

"You're disgusting," she moans, her head tossing upon the pillow; this is not what she had expected from him, not what she had expected at all, but she has married a dirty old man, has she not? Yet she never takes her hand off her clitoris, his purrs and his croons now following the rhythm of her hand; he rocks his fingertips into her as she rocks her own hips down onto his hand, this short of deflowering herself upon them. "You are a disgusting, filthy unbeliever dog," she moans, and oh, how his prick leaps at that against her hip; "a foul heathen, I"--

"Correct, my sweet, correct. And now that you've shown me how to cup your little cunny, how to rub it just there, do you know what I am going to do? Hmm?" he asks, licking her ear, rubbing himself shamelessly against the softness of her thigh.

One of his fingers slips inside of her and she cries out; however, this is not enough and she pushes herself further down on his hand, needing more, more. "What?"

"Did you not see what a wonderful garden I have out there?" he says and nods towards the window, dragging out each word, rutting into her ear with his voice as he now ruts into her hip. "Very secluded, very dark, perfect for a midnight tryst. There's a very sturdy lattice there on the harem side, perfect for pinning you against," he hisses, and she cries out in despair as he takes his hand from between her legs and brings it to his cock instead. "I but need to give your cunny a little rub so I can wet myself with it like this, like this," he says as he slickens himself with her sweetness, his nostrils fluttering at her scent; now, he returns his hand to her cunny, pushing two fingers in with ease. "And do you know what I will do, then?"

"Stop teasing me, you bastard!"

"Language!" he laughs and kisses her, wild, punishing her; his chest rumbles against hers as he pushes his fingers in deeper and hooks them, making her howl into his mouth. "Ask me, Yassamin, ask me," he hisses from between clenched teeth, from hair falling down onto his face, he now taking her with his hand at the same frantic speed with which she is rubbing her clitoris. "Ask me."

She pulls back and gasps for air, those deep gasps she knows will bring on orgasm if she but breathes deep enough, moans low enough, then high enough. She delays out of sheer spite, even if she is close, letting out that high noise and again that low noise so that her womb and the walls of her cunny tremble with the vibrations. "What will you do to me, then?" she moans in between these cries, her cunny wetter than it's ever been, its slick noises filling the room as he begins to curl his fingers inside of her, sending white shocks up her spine that blind her. "Tell me!"

His body sticks to hers as he pushes violently against her, growling into her ear. "I am going to throw you against the wall and _fuck you in the arse._ "

And at that, he hooks his fingers so hard that she shrieks and she is gone, gone; there is a sudden wetness between her legs and she does not know if it's blood, and she does not care. She curls double upon the bed and howls, howls from the bottom of her lungs, watches as his hand takes her, the thick veins on his arm as it strains from his pleasuring of her; and when she closes her eyes she can _feel_ the lattice against her cheek, feel his prick entering her from behind, taking her like a boy, her dirty old man, her dirty old man. "I hate you!" she howls as she tosses there, tosses upon his hand, adoring him, loving him, loving him as she has never loved him before; she sobs into his shoulder as she shivers her last.

He but pulls out his hand and begins to slap her cunny, rhythmic, violent; he lets out a high, delighted laughter at the amount of fluid he is now spraying out all over her thighs, her belly, his hip as he does this. "A wellspring, a wellspring!" he cackles, again taking some onto his prick and masturbating with it; once more, the tender lover emerges as he kisses her sweetly, covering her with his weight. "But that was _wonderful,_ my sweet."

She refuses to open her eyes and groans into his shoulder. "I still think you are a disgusting unbeliever pig, however."

"I wondered whether I should take the risk, you know. To tease you so, to test you with such filthy visions. But somehow I _knew_ you would respond to something like that, my wanton."

"And that's why I hate you. Did you truly mean it?"

Now, he pulls back and takes her face in his still-wet hands. "Whatever it takes to pleasure you, my lady, you can count on me to provide," he grins, his crooked teeth glimmering in the afternoon light. "If upon our first night, you practically irrumated _yourself_ upon my prick... well, let's just say that I took that as a good omen," he cackles, rocking his prick against her belly.

She lets out a pointed cough and glances between their bodies. 

"You are right," he says and glances down himself. "Here I am, talking of debaucheries when we have not even passed that first gate yet," he says and kisses her on the nose. "Do you think you could take me now?"

She raises her eyebrow and wraps her arms about his neck. "I have been ready for the past hour," she complains. "Jaffar, if you do not take me now, I am divorcing you on grounds of the marriage never having been consummated," she says and wraps her legs around him, too.

But it is at that that he takes her mouth: the time for banter is over. Gently, he pulls back, unfolds her legs and places her feet upon the mattress; when he covers her again and and guides himself to her entrance, he once more seeks her eyes. It's as if he almost asks if she is ready, but realises that would earn him a slap: therefore, he doesn't, only begins to push inside of her with gentle nudges, in and out, making sure not to thrust in too deep yet. "How does that feel?"

"A little uncomfortable, but not painful," she says, straining a little. She is, in fact, a little surprised; despite his size, it does not hurt at all. "Is that normal?"

He chuckles and pulls back, then thrusts in a little deeper, rocking his hips gently, seemingly lost in staring at her cunny, the way her flesh now embraces his. "You know, I think this but proves my skill as a lover, even if I say so myself. There's no blood whatsoever!"

"Are you sure?" she asks, glancing down at them, not sure whether to laugh or weep. "But they'll think me a harlot!" she cries, and now he _does_ hurt inside of her, now that she stiffens in panic. "They'll think I am not truly a virgin--" she looks up at him, terrified that he thinks it, too. "Jaffar, I--I swear, I swear--"

"Hush," he says and kisses her, never ceasing in his movements inside of her. "I believe you, absolutely. Not all women bleed when it's their first time, especially if they have been well loved beforehand," he says tenderly. "And I promised to warm you thoroughly, didn't I?"

"But what shall we--" she frowns, now hurting too much from her nervousness, so much so that she pushes him out of her body. "What shall we show to them in the morning?"

"Let me see," Jaffar says and looks around himself. "Ah. This should do it." He picks up one of the turban pins and without hesitation, he pricks himself upon the back of his forearm several times. He squeezes his skin until blood beads out, then proceeds to smear the blood upon the sheet. "There. That should convince them."

"Are you sure that enough?" 

"Shall I open a vein?!" he laughs. "No, my love; that's more than some girls ever bleed," he says and tosses the pin aside.

"Is that how well you loved them, too?" she asks him as he gathers her in his arms once more, but she is not truly jealous.

He kisses her nose as he lifts her legs and begins to guide himself inside of her once more. "Well, my sweet... you _are_ the one I have loved the most, so it makes sense you should bleed the least. I hope it does not hurt any longer?"

She wriggles a little; it does feel better, now. "You _are_ enormous. But I shall get used to it," she says and tries to squeeze him a little with her cunny.

He yelps. "My God!"

"Is that how good it feels?" she laughs and does it again.

"You little minx!" he cries and pins her down upon the sheets, beginning to move inside of her more vigorously, now, laughing and nipping at her mouth. "I order you to lie still!" he growls, slapping her thighs and her breasts and tickling her until she is doing quite the opposite, shrieking and giggling underneath him. 

Soon, they are both out of breath, and he truly has to pin her down once more; he drops his hips into a deeper thrust and rolls them as he is inside of her, and nothing has ever touched her so deep. At first, the sensation is sickening; all her internal organs are compressed, jolted with his thrusts, and now she truly is grateful for the enema the women had given her. A little panic wells up inside of her--do all women feel like this underneath men?--at being so crushed by a body so much larger than hers, another's body entering hers like this and her not being able to do anything about it, being taken so, being pounded so. She does not know where to put her legs, whether to wrap them around his back or to keep them on the bed; the latter seems to bring her less discomfort. 

Discomfort, yes, but with each thrust he is also opening up in her a warmth, making her aware of planes of flesh, of nerves she did not even know existed; with his love, he is now setting those nerves alight. It's as if her womb had been a lantern only waiting to be lit: slowly, she begins to grow warmer, to glow with a wonderful, soft, gold and red heat.

It is at her silence that he lifts his head from her shoulder, regarding her with a tenderness that breaks her heart. "How are we doing?" he asks, perhaps still afraid that he is hurting her.

"Intoxicated, I think," she murmurs, caressing his back with her hands. "I was just thinking that my womb was like some dark lantern and that you had finally lit it," she says. "Is that a foolish thing to say?"

"Not at all, my child. I feel as if you have done the same with the lantern of my heart," he says and nuzzles her face. "When I first saw you in your garden, that's when you first reached your hand inside, began to clean the darkness from it; but now--" he looks down and frowns, letting out a little sob. "Forgive me--if you think your metaphor foolish, what must mine sound like to you?"

"No, Jaffar, go on!" she cries, stroking his hair. "It's beautiful. Tell me. You must tell me."

"Well," he says and gathers her to himself, kissing her breasts, her shoulders, rocking her in his embrace. "It's only that I was going to say your body has now lit within me a flame, but it is as if you have made _me_ into a flame," he whispers. "And God help me, but I feel this is not a lone flame, not separate from yours at all, or perhaps it is because our bodies are joined now, or--" and now he cannot speak for his emotion.

And it is from the force of her emotion that she now rolls him onto his back, making him cry out in surprise as she straddles him there. It's harder for her to take him inside of herself in this position, him pressing a little painfully against her womb, now; but she cannot stop. "You saw twin flames and then one?" she asks him and smiles at him, lacing her fingers with his, bringing her perfumed locks to curtain his head. "Tell me, Jaffar. Tell me that is what you saw."

He laughs, a little broken laugh, and for a moment, he seems so young, so young. "Yes," he says, sniffling back his tears, squeezing her fingers with his. "Yes. But the one flame."

"That's what I saw, too," she says, moaning as she takes his mouth, now dancing above him like that flame, and now she understands the deeper meaning behind all the dances her mother had taught her, all the tosses of the hips, the locks of the muscles, all, all; cascades of pleasure and delight ripple through her body until she is no longer a flame but a conflagration atop him, a woman ablaze. 

"Yassamin, Yassamin, Yassamin," he moans underneath her, his hands upon her hips, his face rapt with awe; "please don't stop. Please--"

"I don't think I can," she says, because now the pressure inside of her hips is awful and she has to move faster, faster; she has to bring her hand to her clitoris. She does not know how to reach release like this, does not know anything about such things; yet she does what her body demands of her, riding him with longer thrusts, leaving more room for her womb and its ripples. Yes, ripples: perhaps she can--perhaps--

But it is then, with a sudden, sad cry that Jaffar reaches release before she does: his hips buck so violently he nearly throws her off himself, his chest trembling, gleaming as he comes undone underneath her. At first, she cannot even feel his sperm inside of her, could not feel it splashing inside of her, that's how deep he had been inside of her; yet little by little, the slickness increases inside of her as she continues to ride him, unable to stop. 

"Keep going," he murmurs, gasping for breath; "Oh, my Yassamin--I'm so sorry. But I can remain hard, trust me."

She but shakes her head. "First of all: I am but honoured. Secondly, I don't think I can keep on doing this for long," she pants.

"But I don't want to leave you unsatisfied," he murmurs. "Come, lie on your belly and ride your hands. Is that not how women masturbate?"

"Yes, but--"

"Turn around," he says and smacks her on the arse. "And I will take care of the rest."

"Oh my God!" she jerks, twitches when he first slides fully inside. If she'd thought he'd been deep inside of her when she was riding him--oh, that was nothing compared to how deep he is inside of her now. 

"Am I hurting you?"

"Slow--please, oh--" she groans as she tries to get her hands into the right position so that she may ride them, one clasped over the other, so that she can press her clitoris against the ball of her thumb. "Please, be gentle."

"I shall," he says and moves hair aside from her neck so that he can kiss her cheek. "Is that better?" he asks as he settles between her legs, only undulating into her slowly, now.

"It feels amazing," she slurs; now, he is hitting a place he had never hit before, so deep inside of her he must be touching the back of her womb, he must be. She has only ever come from the front, the stimulation there always a sharp and hard and white shock; yet the sensation here at the back is deeper, darker, harder, a pleasure so profound she has never felt its like before. And this, she tells him, still in that drunken slur, reporting it to him like a scientist.

"I shall write that down in my notebooks," he laughs. "But I would you forgot the medical aspects of it and focused on but the pleasure, my sweet," he says. "You can tell me how it felt, later."

"I will, if you move a little deeper--that's it, that's it--"

"Longer strokes, like this?"

But now she is shrieking into the pillows, throwing her hips onto her hands, unable to speak at all. He takes this for but encouragement and begins to ride her, clasping her hips and thrusting into her with great violence, truly letting go now, taking her with an animal fury. And it is exactly what she wants, what she needs; the moment he dares take her with this force, she moans at him in delight, whipping him on to even greater fury with her cries. Those noises she had learned to make when taking her hands, those noises that vibrated her womb--she attempts them now, and the pleasure they give her in this position make her nearly lose consciousness, now that there is something touching her womb, something for it to ripple against. Each series of her ripples is now met by a blunt, hard blow from the head of his prick; the weight of his body drives into her and sends those ripples back a thousandfold, throwing her entire body into ecstasies. 

Immediately, he takes up her rhythm, so that just as the ripples from her noises begin to ebb, he strikes at her womb once more, setting _another_ series of ripples into motion. How he knows this--from his engineering studies? From other women?--she does not know, and she does not care: "Jaffar!" she but cries, shrieks, "Jaffar, Jaffar, Jaffar," using his name to plunge herself into the last, final cascades of release.

And there they come, pounded out of her womb by his thrusts, his hips smacking against her buttocks, his balls slapping against her cunny's slick lips; she pierces both their ears with her shrieks, but she cannot help it, never having experienced pleasure like this in her entire life. It is a devastation of pleasure, a cataclysm, her entire body convulsing with its force; she had no idea a woman could come as hard as this. Hopeless, thrilled and terrified she sobs, weeps into her pillow as she convulses upon her hands: for is this not what she will now experience each night, every night? She'll die or at least go mad, mad.

"Mad, mad," she howls, her cunny clenching so hard around him that once again she makes him slip out of her body; "you will make me mad, mad," she sobs, her cunny still clenching, slurping in its emptiness, but she does not care for the embarrassing noises, does not care. 

He collapses beside her, completely covered in sweat, his eyes half-closed in delight. "That was..." he laughs. "That was amazing."

She does not ask him if he has come again: it seems that either way, it is immaterial to him, so peaceful he seems. Again he looks so young, like a youth who has only just discovered the joys of love: for a moment, she wonders if he truly has not loved anyone before her, and again the thought of him having reached his forty-seventh year without love having touched his heart makes her ache.

Thus, even if her every limb trembles, she gathers him into her embrace and pulls the bedcovers over them, no matter how sweaty and sticky they both are. She makes a nest of their bridal bed, a nest of her love to take him in, a lantern of her very self for this twin flame of theirs to keep dancing in. And underneath the bedcovers, she clasps his head to her heart and kisses it; holding him tight, she falls asleep in their sea of roses, in his musk and his ambergris.


	6. Chapter 6

She awakens to something tickling her neck, her cheeks, and stirs from her sleep enough to presume this is Jaffar kissing her. She begins to smile, but now there's something soft landing on her nose and her mouth; she sputters and wipes her face.

When she opens her eyes, it is to Jaffar's grin; he is kneeling above her with a handful of rose petals which he has been sprinkling upon her.

"Good evening, my sweet," he says, tipping the last petals from his hand onto her face, sending her sputtering again. 

"You're a fool," she mumbles after she's managed to spit out the last of the petals, "a fool," even as Jaffar slides into her arms and kisses her.

"Correct; a fool for you," he groans in delight and stretches in her arms. "Would you like me to wash you?"

"Be my guest," she says, still too tired to get up herself. Yet she is determined to drag herself back to wakefulness: she does not want to waste an hour more of this night, wants to savour Jaffar the lover to the utmost.

And as he brings a wet cloth to her genitals, mopping her with rosewater, he does so with such slow gentleness that soon she is wide awake from her desire. She must be perfectly clean already, yet Jaffar continues to massage her cunny through the cloth, cupping her in his hand. An act of tender possessiveness which she adores--to think that his hand is so enormous he can fit her entire sex into it, to so keep her in his palm!

"Truly, you are holding me in the palm of your hand," she sighs and caresses his cheek, making him look up from between her legs.

"Mm," he says and kisses her thigh. "It's a perfect fit. As if you were made for me," he sighs in delight. 

She shakes her head. "Let God strike me dead if we or anyone else should ever think otherwise. Why he did not unite us earlier, I do not know," she murmurs, filled with sudden melancholy over all the years she had spent alone, all the years _he_ had spent alone.

"The Lord has his reasons," he says and mops himself briefly with the cloth, then tosses it aside. "Let us not question his ways," he says as he climbs in to embrace her once more, wrapping his arms and his legs around her and holding her tight. "What matters is that now I am holding you, like this," he says and hugs her so tight she squeaks. "And will defy Death itself to hold you like this, for all time."

"Likewise," she says when he finally lets her breathe. "I do not wish to waste a single moment now that we have each other."

"I was hoping you would feel that way," he grins and rocks against her. "There are a thousand and one ways to make love, which means..." he makes a show of thinking. "We have nine hundred and ninety-something left to try yet."

"A thousand and one? How unimaginative," she laughs and runs a fingetip down the middle of his chest. "It must have been a man who came up with that figure. I am sure but a few imaginative women could double that figure; nay, triple it."

Jaffar glances up at the heavens, whispering "Thank you, God!" dramatically, his eyes glowing from delight as he looks at her again. "And what does my wife's imagination suggest to her at this juncture?"

She blushes a little, now that they are not merely joking. Visions of erotic acrobatics fill her mind; the couples from Jamila's miniatures rut before her eyes in all kinds of positions imaginable and unimaginable. And then there are the contraptions--the ropes and the belts and the toys and the ointments--oh, where would she even start?

But at the heart of it all, she knows what she wants: she wants to taste him once more, wants to swallow him into herself, consume him. 

"Lie down, my love," she says. 

And oh, the glow upon his face as he obeys her, making a show of surrendering unto her. His prick has already awakened, waving half-hard as he turns around, and she fancies this is merely from her so taking charge. Now, he even bends his legs and opens them, as if he were a woman about to be taken: he almost speaks, as if to voice his desire to her out loud, yet hesitates at the last minute. 

But it is that hesitation itself that makes it clear to her what it is that he wants: an act she has read about as something that drives men out of their minds, one of those exact acts Jamila's book had recommended for utterly submitting a man to his mistress. Clearly, it's something that he enjoys having done to him, but fears she might find too filthy and thus beneath herself.

Therefore, she must prove herself to him, to prove to him she is without that fear. And now, as she settles between his legs and begins to stroke his prick, she also brings her other hand's fingertips between his buttocks, making him gasp, making his prick _leap_ in her hand.

And she was right: there is a slickness upon his anus that is not of rosewater, nor of filth. 

"Jaffar?"

"Yes?" he croaks.

"The women at the bath-house gave me a herbal enema before I came here; they said it would enhance my pleasure. Do they, perchance, do the same thing for bridegrooms?"

He shakes his head. "No. But I gave myself one nevertheless," he says with a grin. "As you have already found out, you little demoness!"

She laughs and leans down to give his cock a kiss. "Yet you were too gentlemanly to ask. I told you, I am not like other women, nor am I quick to judge any acts of love as inherently filthy. And if the filth has been removed, well..." she swallows at her own boldness. "Listen to me! I would never have imagined myself saying that to anyone! What have you done to me?" she asks, blinking. 

He but caresses her cheek. "Methinks I have made a chaste princess into... well," he laughs in astonishment. "Forgive me. I could never imagine hearing such wonderful things from a woman's lips, even those of a houri of Paradise," he says with such great tenderness that his chest trembles with it. "And I do not care if I have just blasphemed."

Now it is Yassamin's turn to whisper loudly at the heavens. "He means well!" she hisses, then looks down at him again, smiling. "Show me. Teach me how to do it."

And as he does, she is full of questions, curious about the people he has done this with before--boys? Slave girls? Or has he been doing it himself? She wonders about all these things as she takes his cock into her mouth and slips her hand between his buttocks. He must have plenty of experience with this act, the way he first guides her to but massage the muscles of his opening with her fingertips. Yet even the fact that he now has to do so in words, to articulate to her what he wants--never could she have imagined a man to be as bashful as a woman about these things.

But then, this is an act unmanly, something only a sodomite would enjoy; and even sodomites, if they are grown men, prefer to take boys instead of being taken themselves. Therefore, it is not only the pleasure of this act that enables a woman to wrap such a man about her little finger, but the sin of his enjoyment of it: a ruthless woman could easily blackmail her lover with this knowledge, even destroy his reputation with it.

Therefore, Yassamin is intimately aware that what Jaffar is now sharing with her is his greatest vulnerability, as it must be his greatest pleasure: never has she seen him like this, his entire body awakening so to her touch. In fact, it astounds her to see a man so full of command, so full of self-control lose himself this way from her stimulation of whatever nerves he possesses here: as she slides her fingertip inside of him, he arches off the bed and pants, his every limb trembling as if in shock. 

"Please, Yassamin," he cries, glancing down, taking his cock from her mouth and stroking it himself instead, "please, don't stop. Please, please," he moans, "another, another--" And as she pushes a second finger inside of him, he tosses his head back and howls, as if in pain. 

And yet, this very moment, she realises he is again crowning her with a great power, a power altogether new to her: her power over him through the pleasure she can give him. As she feels for his insides, so hot and so soft and so tender, _like silk, oh, hot and smooth silk,_ she shivers at the realisation. To hold a man's entire body upon but two fingertips, a man twice her age, a man possessed of all the powers of witchcraft--and now it is she who is the sorceress, tracing magic sigils inside of his body with her touch, making him spill and radiate his power in waves over the sheets, waves. 

For now, her husband glows: the sun is setting and its pinks and its purples paint the sweat now covering his skin with their gentle light, yet the greater light is now radiating from within him. In her cleaving unto his body, she has opened him entire, exposed him to his trembling, pulsing core: her Simurgh now wounded by this penetration of love, impaled upon her hand, his very heartbeat fluttering against her fingertips. 

And it is at this that she feels a sadness, a terror sweep over her. "Am I hurting you?" she asks and she realises this is exactly what the gentle bridegroom feels upon his wedding night, not wanting to hurt his bride; she chokes upon a sob as she now understands this, how it feels for a man in love. Again he has gifted her with the experience of both sexes, the entire experience of love itself, for this is not something most women would ever know or feel. "Tell me if it hurts, and I will stop," she murmurs.

"God!" he cries and looks down at her, squeezing his prick in his fist. "Does it look like you are hurting me?" he laughs and lifts his hand, showing to her all the thick, clear fluid now gathered upon it. "Look what you have done," he groans in ecstasy. "I've never had this happen with a woman, never, ever--"

So he has never had a woman do this to him? She almost does not ask, but she is so overwhelmed by her emotion that she cannot keep these questions inside any longer. "Who have you done it with before?"

He slickens his cock with his sap and continues to stroke it, gazing at her past it, a little melancholy. "To tell you the pitiful truth, only myself. Once I had grown up, that is," he says, and from that, she understands that it must have been men who had taught him this, the men who must have been taking him as a boy. And from her eyes, he knows she understands: "Aye," he whispers with not a little bitterness, "you are the first woman to ever bring me this, the first to touch me there in thirty years. Never would I have allowed anyone--never did I think I could have anyone--" but now his voice breaks into a sob and he squeezes his prick harder, stroking himself with such violence it is as if he were punishing himself.

She shakes her head, tears now gathering in her own eyes. "Jaffar..." and now she has to lean over him and kiss him, hold him tight; but she dares not stop the slow love of her fingers inside of him. "I promise to keep your secret safe, promise, promise," she nuzzles against his cheek, her tears mingling with his. "And I will do this to you every night, should you desire it," she says and emphasises this with a soft curl of her fingers, feather-soft. "Every night, my darling, darling beloved; every night."

He howls into her ear, clutching her back with his free hand. "I love you, I love you, don't stop, don't stop, please, don't stop--"

And it is at that that she knows the time for words is over: she leans down and takes his cock into her mouth. Just as he had done with his fingers inside of her, so does she now hook and curl hers inside of him. She has read of the male pleasure gland, has seen miniatures of women with leather pricks attached to their hips with harnesses--

 _Then, by God, I shall get you one the first thing tomorrow!_

And he did not say those words out loud, did he? She cannot tell, not from all the swallowing and sucking she is doing. But it is as if he begins to pour into her far before his sap or his sperm do, all of her flooded with effulgence; she has to take her free hand to her clitoris and rub it or else she will be torn to pieces by this, this power now surging through her each limb. _He is entering her,_ that has to be the only explanation, for what now rises in her hips and in her sex is so unlike a woman's arousal, so unlike a woman's orgasm the way it thrusts and pushes forwards, up, free--

But then she can think no more as whiteness blasts through her body and into her throat. She can feel _her own fingers pressing into the back of her womb,_ her own cunny gushing with wetness, and she screams around his cock, choking and coughing as he shoots himself into her mouth. And all the while, he is so open before her that he is enveloping her, as if she is now sinking into his body and it's swallowing her, sealing itself around her, then surging out of her, her flesh become his flesh, his release become hers. She trembles around him as she unravels, both of their bodies convulsing in time, and with his each pulse she sucks, swallows; with each mouthful of sperm, she is swallowing Jaffar himself, again and again. Already he is inside of her and then pulls out of her, just as her fingers pull out before each new curl; already his soul is inside of her but moves through her and out of her for the pleasure of returning, returning; again his prick pulses and again she swallows him until they have become but the ouroboros, one being swallowing itself, nourishing itself in an endless circle of love, love.

It is he who breaks this holy circle first, with a hoarse cry: even if his own limbs are trembling, he pulls her free of him and takes her in his arms. Exhausted, they nestle there for a long while; she does not care for the stickiness of her fingers, the stickiness of the sperm trails now painting her jaw and her neck. It's Jaffar she has been painted with, the colours of his passion that she has been anointed with; in a sudden rush of tenderness, she cradles him possessively in her arms. To the end of her life will she protect his secret desires; to the end of her life will she spread the wings of her protection over him; to the end of her life does she vow to be the guardian and the keeper of his pleasure and his delight. 

"And forever shall I promise to be the same to you, my love," he says and presses a kiss to her hand, reverent, sighing in utter joy.

"Can you truly hear my thoughts?"

"It's fading, now. But you felt me, did you not? I don't think I have been this open since--" he sighs and looks up. "I cannot even remember. It must have been when I was very young and still learning magic; I had not yet learned how to lock the gates of my mind to protect myself. You have to learn that first, you see--in order to keep the magic from spilling, and to keep enemies from using something like a trance-state to their advantage. You would not want to have your body invaded by djinn when you were merely lying down to meditate," he murmurs.

But now that she feels for him, she no longer feels that same piercing light shooting forth from him: he must have closed the gates of his mind, for now she can only feel his ordinary radiance, his tenderness and his love humming about her. Yet even this hum is more powerful than anything she has ever felt from another human being before, even stronger than the love she had felt as a babe in her mother's arms; in this love she now basks, curling up and now letting herself be held tight in turn.

Yet once they have both caught their breath, one thought still keeps haunting her. "Did you mean it about the harness?"

He rolls his eyes. "Oh, God! You heard that?"

"I wasn't sure!" she laughs and now climbs on top of him, resting her head on her arms crossed over his chest. "But I have seen those things in books. I thought it was a stray thought from my own mind, you see."

"Your mind would have plucked the closest equivalent image, I think," he says. "God, is this what it is to be like? No thought of mine will ever be safe from you again!"

"Is that such a bad thing?" she asks.

"I'm not sure yet," he says, drawling a little as he ruffles her hair. "But now I'll have to buy you one of those contraptions, won't I?"

She shakes her head. "I wouldn't know what to do with it."

"I don't know; you ravished me fine just now," he says and winces. "Although, to be quite honest with you, I thought it was _I_ who was going to get to bugger _you_ first."

"There's still time," she says, twiddling her toes.

His eyes widen. "You _have_ become utterly shameless, haven't you?"

She mock-widens her own eyes in response. "And whose fault is that?"

He rocks himself against her, as if to test the state of his prick. "I might be able to do it once more tonight," he murmurs. "If we but go slowly."

"You don't have to," she says and rolls off him, nestling beside him. 

"Nonsense; it's a matter of honour," he says and pecks her on the cheek. "I swore to myself that on our wedding night--and hopefully, on all consecutive nights--I would make sure to satisfy your every desire. And as you have so graciously given me the forbidden pleasure already, I am in your debt. But a moment, my sweet."

"How _do_ you have the energy for this?" she asks as he hops off the bed and makes for the washbasin. 

He glances over his shoulder as he wets another cloth and picks up an ornate little clay jar. "From what I have gleaned, it is to do with the type of release. Women usually feel more energetic after orgasm, because theirs is an internal one--it invigorates the flesh, charges the body with energy as it settles into the limbs, whereas with the male orgasm, that energy is expelled from the body, dissipated, lost."

Trust him to launch into a medical explanation for it all! "And was yours more internal than external, now?" she says as he begins to mop the remains of sperm from her jaw. "What about this?" 

"I think this one was a little bit of both," he says as he proceeds to clean her hands and his arse. "You must be exhausted from having had to play the man, however," he murmurs, almost to himself. "Now, I order you to lie down and be pleasured," he says and smacks her on the arse. "Lie down on your belly, that's it."

"Yes, doctor," she murmurs.

"Good girl," he but chuckles and kisses her shoulder, relishing her yelp as he opens the jar and begins to apply a cream of some kind between her buttocks. "Now, as I said, but lie down and relax."

When he begins to pry inside of her with his finger, it feels a little uncomfortable at first: but if this had felt so good for him, surely it will soon feel good for her, too? She wouldn't have agreed to this, practically asked for it if she wasn't curious. Therefore, she spreads her legs and breathes deep, shuddering as he manipulates her opening with his slickened fingers.

"You should ride your hands," he says, and it sounds as if he is a little short of breath, already aroused by this act. "Go on. Play with yourself a little."

She glances over her shoulder and it is his grin that gives her cunny a jolt far harder than the pressure of her hands does; already his cock is awakening, stirring against his thigh. And soon, once she begins to ride her hands, once he picks up her rhythm with his finger, she is moaning out loud: the pleasure comes fast, unexpected, a lightning shock through her guts. 

"Oh, my God!"

"Already?" he laughs.

"Don't stop!" she cries, her hands slipping from how wet she is. It is as if her body has rushed ahead, so fast that her mind hasn't even had a chance to follow it to this fury of arousal it is now bathing in: in but moments, she has become dripping wet, her cunny so swollen that she barely recognises it--and Jaffar is hardly doing anything! She can feel it's still but the tip of his finger he's dipping inside of her, he still but teasing open the muscles and coating them with the cream. 

"Is that--is that just one finger?"

"Mm-hmm?" he says and tilts his head. "God, but I can smell you from here! Is that how good it feels?" he says and he has to peek between her legs, try and catch a glimpse of her cunny. "And so fast, too! Do you want a second one, or shall we move straight on to the main course?"

As wonderful as it feels, she wants to be careful: she shudders and moans, her arse clenching around his finger as it slips deeper inside. "Another, please?"

"In a moment," he says and already his voice is thick and husky, strained from his own arousal; he shifts upon the bed and she can hear his breathing, hear his leer as again the old lech in him steps out, relishing his debauching of the maiden. "I need to get you greased up well first, you see," he purrs, "all nice and slick for my _cock,_ " he croons, again becoming the dirty old man who had threatened to sodomise her in his garden. 

She hates how that voice makes her cunny clench, clench violently, even more as he oils that one finger and pushes it all the way inside of her arse. She howls as she can feel the rest of his hand touching her cunny, now, his fingers brushing hers; as he begins to take her with that finger, _fuck_ her with it, she trickles from between her fingers. Again, that strange trickle, something she has never felt before when masturbating--is it her bladder giving up? He is overwhelming her entire body so that all its functions are but obeying his hands, she thinks and sobs, sobs.

And now, he pulls back and the pressure upon her arse increases. "Now, the second one. Are you ready?"

Her answer is but a whimper. He takes it for the encouragement it is and begins to press inside, again dipping in and out: but now that the stretch is doubled, the pleasure is doubled, too, and she howls and shrieks into the pillow. "Don't stop, don't stop!"

"What, this?" he asks innocently, hooks his fingers downwards and _tugs._

She had just drawn in a deep breath, but now it stops in her lungs: her entire body crackles, sparks, and she holds that breath in, and this cannot--she is sure that once she lets it out, she will--

But she is given no choice. For it is then that he chuckles and tugs again, again, again and that breath bursts out of her lungs a long scream. All of her judders into release and she cannot believe it--it's all so fast that it terrifies her, her entire body tossing and jerking, spasming between the bed and his hand; she must look like she's going into seizure. Yet all of these thoughts are but faint in the back of her head, quiet whispers underneath the massive noise, the vast explosion of this, her first sodomitic orgasm. And here she had thought she could not feel pleasure greater than what he had given her earlier tonight; to think that she had presumed sodomy would be uncomfortable--oh, God. And to think that this is just the beginning, that this is but two of his fingertips; once he gives her his prick, she is going to die! She is going to die, she is going to die. 

Hopeless, she groans deep in her throat and sobs, hiccoughing into the pillows, her clitoris pulsing into her hands like a little prick, her cunny gushing so that now even the back of her hand is wet from where she's wet the sheets. "I'm sorry," she groans. "But I--"

But as she turns around to look at him over her shoulder, he is sucking her taste from his fingers; she hates how her shudder of revulsion is now turned into one of pleasure, her body still incapable of feeling anything but. "You disgusting pig!"

He chuckles from deep in his belly. "I love it when you call me that. Honey and saffron, too," he moans in exaggerated delight, licking the last of the foam off his fingers. "Had I known they'd made you so delicious for me, I would've tasted you before I put the cream in," he says. 

"I don't care," she moans and flops down onto the bed, her arms trembling from exertion. "I demand that you take me now," she mumbles. "Before I faint. Or fall asleep. Or die."

"Let us aim for the first," he says gently and turns her over with a kiss. "Shall we, hmm?"

"Mm," she groans, even the ripples of his laughter now sending cascades of sweet aftershocks through her body.

And there, he pulls her into a spooning position, so that they are both lying on their left sides: once she is nestled snug against him, he spreads the cream liberally between her buttocks and begins to guide his cock inside.

"Keep stroking yourself, my sweet," he whispers against her ear. "I must warn you that you are so delicious that--yes, I do think I _am_ harder than I ever have been this entire night," he says, with surprised delight. "And you're so tight, too," he hisses as he dips the head of his cock into her, shuddering himself. "God!"

And he isn't exaggerating; he is so hot and so hard that for a short, delirious moment she thinks of his prick as a spear now impaling her. For the stretch it now brings to her arse is nothing at all like the pleasure his fingers had brought her: now, it feels as if her arse will never allow him in, as if she had now reached the limits of what her body was capable of, that inside her is now a gate of stone that he simply cannot get past. How on earth had she opened for him so easily earlier? Even as he goes slowly--only with little nudges in and out--or exactly because of that, she feels guilty, like her body had promised him--and her--a pleasure it's now cheated both of them out of.

"It'll feel good soon, my love, I promise," he whispers with a hand on her belly, trying so very hard not to thrust too deep; "but keep on breathing. I promise, my love," he murmurs with frantic kisses upon her neck; "I promise. Breathe, breathe." 

Again he pushes, presses in a little deeper and she stiffens, even if the pleasure is still there, hiding underneath the white-and-red pain around his invading prick. Oh, but she must focus on the pleasure, must; even if now her skin is covered in cold sweat, the stench of it disgusting, her hand trembling so much it's hard for her to keep on stroking herself. Even her clitoris has shrunk; it's harder for her to find the right spot, the nerve by which to bring it to life again, the pain distracting her too much. Oh, but it's hopeless--

But then, with one pull back and one push in, he is inside of her. She'd howl if she could; she'd move if she could; she'd do something, say something if she could. But all of her has now become the white and red pain her flesh now swims in, her body a poor, lifeless corpse being stabbed again and again by an enemy out to mutilate it, to shame it. 

"Yassamin," Jaffar rasps, and he sounds close to weeping. Has he again heard her thoughts? Felt her pain?

No, no--she grits her teeth. Jaffar is not her enemy, not her enemy, and she focuses upon her hand, forces it to move, to rub herself. Through the cold sweat and the shudders and her body trying to reject him, she forces herself to remain here, remain in this place that had once blossomed a garden of delight, waiting for this winter of pain to pass for the spring of pleasure to return again, return.

"Good girl, good girl, good girl," he whispers from somewhere far away, his hands as soft as petals as he embraces her, his kisses soft as petals, his voice as soft as petals, soft. All of him feels so light apart from his prick of steel and stone, a wonder; he flutters around her and sings to her his pleasure with his moans, his groans, his sighs of awe-filled delight. Around her, he hums like the spring forest, his kisses the wetness of fresh, new earth--

And it is then that the pain is moved aside and he hits a spot inside of her that turns her molten. In the darkness of her body, a seed, a seed of gold uncurling, a golden sprout unfurling; and now her clitoris swells against her fingers, a howl swells in her lungs and pours out of her throat. He has found her pleasure, she has found her pleasure, and now she sobs around him, clutching him, still pale, weak. But he is her pleasure, he is her light, he is her sun. 

He is her sun. She needs him to rise out of her pain, needs his warmth so she can spring forth from this earth, this heaviness; her sun, her sun--

"Jaffar..."

"I don't want to hurt you too much," he murmurs softly, stilling.

Yet that is the worst thing he could do, now. "Please. Move inside of me. It hurts when you don't move; it's so cold--please. Warm me, my love; warm me," she stutters, clasping his hand upon her belly. "My sun."

He does not question this; he takes her into his heat, his radiance, and she knows he has heard her, has felt her thoughts. With a tender sigh, he clasps her hand with his; he begins to undulate into her slow and sweet like honey, with strokes long as sunbeams, with hips that know how to do this, oh, know how to do this.

"Is that better?" he purrs, rolling his hand, rolling his hips, rolling his tongue in his mouth, dipping it into her ear. "Is that it, is that it?" he pants in a slow tease.

"Yes!" she cries, astonished how quickly the pain has gone, as if it had never been there at all.

For now, all of the red-white has turned into pleasure, brought to life by his heat: white and red roses blossoming inside of her with his every stroke, unfurling in a thousand quivering petals of delight. And oh, how long his strokes are, how sweet; the warmth of the spring sun to her cunny now wetting again, swelling again. And inside of her, his cock no longer a weapon but the instrument of love and pleasure that it is: each part of her that he now stretches sings with joy, each thrust of his sending waves, ripples of pure ecstasy through her being. Is she, too, open, now? For she feels thrown open wide, her love itself heaving out of her like air rippling upon a hot day, those little ripples tightening and rising, heralding a new orgasm. Can he truly feel her?

"I can," he breathes into her ear, now measuring his thrusts carefully, sensing she is near the peak: this, she can feel, too, his determination, his calculating of it, his knowledge and his wisdom as a lover. "Let me feel you, my sweet; let me feel you. Take me in, take me in--"

And naturally, easily she turns onto her stomach and he follows; he follows her deep inside of her body, deeper than he has ever been before, and now all she sees is but black. She had thought the ripples would now carry her over to orgasm, but there is a moment's darkness instead: then it passes, and she realises she must have lost consciousness for a moment. And it is no wonder, she thinks: he is now sliding _past_ that spot that had blinded her when he had touched it through her cunny: the back of her womb. 

_Is this, the back of the womb, not the place where life itself begins?_ she thinks deliriously. _And only now has it been opened in me? Never did I know it was the source of all pleasure, too, of all beauty and of all joy,_ she sobs into the mattress. _Never did I know there was a place in me that was capable of such vast pleasure, but trust it to be the part in me that gives life, the part that nurtures humankind itself, the place where surely, a woman's soul lives. And yet this must be it--_ "Oh, Jaffar--!"

"I'm here," he says, and with one roll of his hips, he pulls her out of her darkness; with one push, he lifts her into a light dazzling, blinding, bright. 

She becomes the sun. She becomes light, becomes radiance, he finally having consumed her so that his light shines through her; she can feel his very self entwining around her, within her, him sliding his soul inside of hers just as he is now sliding his body inside hers. Release, release: with the highest wave of it, Simurgh wings flare coruscant from her back and her body lifts off the mattress; he the wave that groaning, now throws her back down, rocks into her, crashes into her, washes her full of white sweetness. White sweetness, white foam, and she knows he is coming inside of her; she takes his hands and clutches them to her chest, squeezes him with her hips, her womb. With the entirety of her body, she welcomes him, takes him in, drinks him in and swallows him, so that now it is he who burns inside of her and she is the great silence, she the darkness of the earth, she the great fecundity opening to enfold within itself the seed. 

Her arms cramp and shake, yet she keeps on holding on to him. She regrets that this was so fast, so sudden; perhaps later, she will learn how to hold back, to keep herself from coming so soon. But that only makes her realise how it must have been her orgasm that had triggered his release, them so entwined they had surged to the heights as one. Is he still inside of her self, the way he is still nestled inside of her body?

 _Yes,_ he murmurs into her, within her. _And you will learn to control it, I think... perhaps we'll take a few cups of wine the next time. Although I fear that would dull the pleasure; that, and there is no wine as intoxicating as you, my sweet,_ he purr-laughs, his very gladness vibrating into her flesh.

"Forget wine, indeed... when we are swimming in divine communion," she slurs, then laughs. "How strange it sounds when you say it out loud."

He chuckles and tucks his chin over her shoulder. "I find it strange, too. To speak of magical things out loud. So often, people use them as but metaphors. I am not sure if I have ever met a mystic who's experienced what we just have," he says. "I am still trying to understand it myself."

She slips free and turns around so that they can lie down face to face, so that she may kiss him. "Do not seek to explain love," she says, her voice now gone from all her screaming, so that all that comes out is a husky whisper. 

Although she, too, is still trying to understand this: she makes sure to offer God as many additional prayers as she can tomorrow, to offer Him her heartfelt thanks until her knees ache. One should not try and explain God either, yet wise men have tried for centuries and still do; right now, she is feeling His presence more keenly than ever before, even if some would consider what they've just done a heinous sin. But can anything that is made of Love itself, anything that brings one closer to God, anything that fills one with sweetness and light truly be a sin? No, no, it cannot be: she refuses to believe this. 

"What are you thinking of, my sweet?" he murmurs and brushes hair from her cheek.

"What the angel said, that day I performed the tablecloth-ritual," she whispers. "Or was it you?"

"Depends on what you mean."

"What he wrote on the plates of flour."

He shakes his head. "That was not me. I only came in as he was leaving," he smiles. "He left the door open for but a moment, but it was enough for me to slip in."

"I was hoping that's what it was!" she says and murmurs a prayer. 

"What did he say? I didn't look."

She hesitates a little, fearing she will sound foolish. But in her husband's eyes, she reads but pure encouragement, hope, belief. Therefore, her voice still barely above a whisper, she recites to him the words Gabriel had left behind.

" _Fear not, girl-child!_  
_For We have sent him to you_  
_So that through him you might know_  
_Our Beauty, Our Mercy and Our Might."_

Upon hearing this, Jaffar closes his eyes, shudders in awe and kisses her hands feverishly. "It is a great responsibility."

"What about you? Did God not tell you anything about me?" One would have thought that if Jaffar had been chosen for this purpose, he would have been told of it as well.

Jaffar's eyes flicker back and forth, and it is clear that he hesitates a little, too, still trying to remember that he is, for once, in the presence of a person who does trust him, who trusts his magic, who does not think him a fool.

"That first day I saw you in my crystal... I never told you about that day, did I?"

"Not in great detail, no."

"I had spent the previous night in prayer. I was so weary, so tired that I was close to ending my own life--I had walked such a long way all alone, you see. And the greedy brat I was, I prayed to God to send me a sign, to send me an angel's feather, a little spark of light in my darkness, a reason for me to keep on living. Wasn't that selfish of me?"

She laughs and kisses his hand. "Then, I am glad of your selfishness. There is nothing of the brat to the man who lies beside me today."

He shakes his head. "I am glad you did not see me then; I was desperate that day. And perhaps it was because of this despair that I cast my nets further than I would have done otherwise," he says. "I perhaps hoped to exhaust myself, to even end my life with such an effort," he says and squeezes her hand, a gentle smile spreading upon his face, making the corners of his eyes crinkle in joy. "But it was then that I discovered in Basra the most beautiful of gardens, and in it the most beautiful of princesses. I thought to perhaps amuse myself with her for a little while, to play the satyr, just as she had feared I would. But then, the little minx turned out to have a soul--a soul greater than any I had ever met!" he chuckles. "Soon, I was hopelessly in love with her. And you know the rest."

She nuzzles his face with hers. "I, too, would have been lost without you," she says. "Had it not been for your great soul encompassing mine, spiriting me away with its wings, I would not be the same Yassamin that embraces you today. And to think of--well," she smiles. "If we have grown this much in under two months, what will we be in two years? Two decades from this?"

He chuckles and kisses her lips. "'Rulers of the world,' the younger Jaffar would have said. Which means we must retire quickly, before the temptation becomes too great. Where would you like to go?"

"That house upon the outskirts of Basra sounded tempting. Although I hear that it is Shiraz that has the most beautiful of gardens."

"Gundishapur has the best libraries, Samarkand the most fruitful of orchards, and Nishapur the best observatories. Perhaps we should but move from town to town, like travelling dervishes, with no fixed abode."

She shakes her head. "I would our children had but the one place to grow up in."

"It's settled, then? Basra?"

"Let us sleep on it--a few more nights," she says and kisses his nose. 

The sun has already set, yet his eyes are still a clear blue, the last of the light dancing in them, trapped within the magic crystals of his irises. "Know that the only thing I care about is not where we live, but whether I have you living there beside me," he says.

And she fancies that in his eyes she can see a touch of melancholy, of fear; that he still cannot quite believe this is real. "You just try and be rid of me," she says and squeezes his hand. "And I heard that thought. If this is a dream, how can we both be dreaming the same dream?"

"Lovers often do," he says and squeezes her hand back. "Pinch me."

"If you pinch me right back."

They do, and soon the pinching turns into yelping and tussling and laughing; that they should need this little burst of pleasure-pain even now, after all their wild bouts of lovemaking! But it helps shed the last of their worries, she thinks as she pants beside him, rolls around with him, stealing his breath from him with her kisses. 

"Will you now believe I am real?" she asks him and pulls the bedcovers over them.

"Mmm," he says and rolls her onto her back once more, taking the blanket and several of the pillows with them. "Let me just make sure," he says and dives between her legs, flicking his tongue into her cunny.

She cries out loudly. "I'm sore! And it's midnight!"

He pushes up from underneath the blanket, his hair in a mess, his mouth gleaming from her. "Then I suggest you find a way to put me to sleep, my sorceress."

"I will, if you but lie still," she says and pushes him playfully off herself; she takes up the blanket and tucks him in so that he is practically swaddled with it. "There. Will you promise to not wriggle around any more?"

"I cannot promise anything," he says and licks his lips wolfishly.

She ignores him and finds another blanket for herself, tucking herself in next to him, determined to sleep. "I have read that it's easier to enter someone else's mind when they are on the edge of sleep. Can you try and step into mine once I'm relaxed enough?"

"We can try," he says and squirms inside of his blanket.

"Then close your eyes," she says and gives him a last goodnight kiss. "And follow me."

There is but darkness for long moments. But at last, it is in her garden that she stirs, beside her pool, underneath her chestnut tree. The midday sun has banished her handmaidens from the garden, and she is alone, alone with the water and the birdsong and the wind: there is but one thing missing.

With a soft chuckle upon the air, her ghost is upon her. She cannot see him but she can feel him; she shivers in pleasure as his musk and his silks and his warmth envelop her. 

"Finally I have found you," he whispers and laces his fingers with hers. _The home of my heart, the end of all my desire._

"My djinni," she whispers and stretches underneath him, tears of happiness filling her eyes. "Never leave me again, my love."

"You just try and be rid of me," he chuckles. "Now that I have found you, I will stay, my sweet love; I will stay," he murmurs and takes her mouth with his; "until the end of time."

***

END

***

**Author's Note:**

> Freely rebloggable Tumblr promo post for the fic [here](http://aikainkauna.tumblr.com/post/152969780033/fic-for-you-have-seen-your-golden-wings) :3


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